Polski Ransomware

The Polski Ransomware is a Polish-based Trojan that may encrypt your files to lock them out of usability and create threatening messages through pop-ups, text or background wallpapers. Although decrypting the locked content is possible occasionally, malware experts heavily recommend using backups that make the accessibility of decryption into a non-problem for most users. You should treat an already-infected PC by rebooting it with appropriate security protocols in place and using anti-malware programs to delete the Polski Ransomware safely.

New Waves of Ransoms for Poland

Although Poland experiences longer break periods between verified attacks by file-encrypting threats than, for example, North America, con artists do continue taking it and other areas of Europe into account when they construct new Trojans. In large part, the differences between old threats like the UnblockUPC Ransomware and new ones, like the Polski Ransomware, are details related to how they manipulate their victims emotionally. The Polski Ransomware campaign, for example, chooses to use a 'carrot and stick' method that offers benefits for taking the con artist's word but drawbacks for ignoring it.

The Polski Ransomware claims that it's using an AES-256-based encryption to lock your files, although malware researchers have yet to corroborate this attack description. However, AES is a common algorithm for encryption, which can encipher files of formats like JPG, DOC, HTML, ZIP, or MP4, and make them unreadable to their associated applications. Among the Polski Ransomware's components, the Trojan also includes an HTML Web page providing general information on its attack and its threat actor's ransom demands for undoing it.

All of the Polski Ransomware's text is in Polish, with a decryption fee equivalent to 249 USD. Its authors offer to demonstrate the validity of their decryptor by restoring two files at no charge. However, victims also are warned that avoiding payment for three days will cause the ransom demand to increase in price. Both elements are common social engineering strategies increasingly with threats of this classification.

Depriving a King of Ransomware of Its Crown

The Polski Ransomware uses limited branding materials to market itself, and much of its text may have been collected from other Trojan campaigns also in operation in recent months. While its font choice and custom crown icon give this threat a degree of personality, its attacks are wholly preventable by the same solutions malware experts already recommend against old file-encryptor Trojans. By backing their files up to a removable drive or cloud server, victims can stop the Polski Ransomware from positioning them in a scenario where paying a ransom is the only possibility for recovering their locked information.

Different means of disseminating threats like the Polski Ransomware include e-mail spam, drive-by-downloads launching through a corrupted website's exploits and, in particularly dedicated cases, con artists hacking targeted businesses manually. However, small-scale Trojans like the Polski Ransomware are more likely of being installed in downloads for illegal software or bundle-based freeware. Standard anti-malware products should intercept these threats by default, removing the Polski Ransomware before it enciphers any local files.

Virtually any nation with residents fitting a bare minimum prerequisite for expendable finance is at risk of campaigns like the Polski Ransomware's attacks. With minimal information available on both the Trojan and its threat actors, malware experts must limit themselves to recommending general precautions for keeping con artists from taking control of what's yours.