Popcorn Time Ransomware

Posted: December 8, 2016

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	10/10
Infected PCs:	91

First Seen:	December 8, 2016
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware is a Trojan that uses a double layer of the Base64 encryption to lock your files, such as images and text documents. It explains its attacks in an accompanying ransom message as being a solicitation for funding for victims of Syrian warfare. The frequent accompanying dishonesty and lack of reliability in these texts cause malware experts to recommend other recovery choices, when possible, along with removing the 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware through the conventional anti-malware solutions.

Syrians Getting the Munchies for Your Money

While the fake 'Popcorn Time' (a streaming movie service) software and websites are notable for distributing low-level threats previously, such as Giftssoft, malware analysts found a new campaign exploiting this disguise recently. The 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware, still in partial development, uses the same method of concealing its installer, but a much worse payload than launching advertisements. Instead of generating pop-up advertisements, the 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware blocks your computer's files.

Other than using an exceptionally robust algorithm that makes data recovery attempts challenging, the 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware's file-encrypting feature is similar to that of other threats in its category. After enciphering the contents of the files, such as JPG images or DOC documents, the 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware also appends the '.filock' extension to their names.

The 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware makes use of a custom, HTML Web page-based ransom message. This pop-up includes an ID number field, a payment field, and additional elements for streamlining the process of paying its Bitcoin ransom to recover your locked data. Malware experts also see two other, interesting details in its pop-ups: a sympathetic background story for its threat actors, based on warfare in Syria, along with an alternative 'ransom' method. The latter requires distributing the 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware to two other victims who must pay the fee in your place.

Taking the Cyber-Warfare out of Syria

The 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware is unfinished, but even its early samples demonstrate a clear idea of the value of social engineering scams. Whether or not its tragic backstory holds any truth is, arguably, irrelevant, since PC users interested in donating money to Syrian victims can do so directly. Recruiting victims into its distribution network also enhances the campaign's overall growth, while making it seem like an option the Trojan provides out of a sense of mercy.

Free decryption solutions have yet to arrive for the 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware. Backups that you save to external locations and update regularly can give you a non-ransom-based means of recovering any locked content and is the solution malware experts recommend instead of paying con artists. No other features are verifiable in current versions of this threat, but you should use standard anti-malware products to delete the 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware and cover the potential of related security problems.

'Free movies' often result in equally-free problems for anyone searching carelessly on the Web. While past attacks of this nature have been advertising-oriented, the 'Popcorn Time' Ransomware is a very legible memo of some of the other risks entailed in visiting questionable websites for your entertainment.

Popcorn Time Ransomware

Threat Metric

Syrians Getting the Munchies for Your Money

Taking the Cyber-Warfare out of Syria

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