Spectre Ransomware

Posted: June 12, 2017

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:	77

First Seen:	June 12, 2017
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The Spectre Ransomware is a Trojan that uses the AES encryption to block your files and try to force you to pay a ransom to recover them. Con artists don't always reciprocate with their promised help during such transactions, and malware experts recommend saving remote backups to keep your content as safe from file-encrypting threats as possible. Until free decryption is available to the public, the best way to protect your PC from this Trojan is to have anti-malware programs deleting the Spectre Ransomware on sight.

A Digital Haunting Waiting to Happen

Most of the threats that malware analysts identify before their authors circulate them subsist in various stages of unfinished code and incomplete payloads. Some of them never are complete, although they still pose a security and data loss risk to their victims (such as a file-encrypting Trojan that doesn't have a decryption feature). Rarely, however, a Trojan is detectable in a finished state before any attacks, such as the Spectre Ransomware, which gives users an accurate idea of its dangers.

The Spectre Ransomware uses an AES or Rijndael cipher to lock twenty-one different files types on your PC, including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint content, compressed archives, AVI movies and JPG pictures. A secondary feature that the authors include in this attack also encodes the names of the files using an algorithm similar to Base64 visually. To keep the victim from retrieving their files from a Windows backup, the Spectre Ransomware also erases all the Shadow Copies.

The threat actors are taking ransoms for their decryptor download links through a specialized TOR website, which instructs the user to transfer Bitcoins to recover their encoded data. Ransoms are at just under 200 USD in value with no verifiable payments (and, therefore, confirmation of the decryption app) currently. Like the Trojan, itself, this payment site is fully functional, and malware experts warn that the Spectre Ransomware's authors could deploy their campaign at any time.

Getting the Ghost out of Your Files

Once on your PC, the Spectre Ransomware uses inaccurate filenames (such as 'systemlog.exe') to conceal itself. Although malware experts can confirm that the Trojan causes significant network activity (to accept configuration data for its attacks, such as the infection's ID), it suppresses most symptoms until it locks your files. The AES encryption method that the Spectre Ransomware uses may or may not be decryptable by third parties, and backups always should be relied on for alternative recovery options for any significant media.

Threat actors targeting specific entities, such as a business, might use such methods as spam e-mails or brute-forcing passwords to compromise the PC in question. Alternately, more indiscriminate strategies include bundling Trojans with other, free downloads, or circulating it with the help of Web-based threats like the RIG Exploit Kit. Except for manual compromises from bad password management, appropriate security software can block these infection vectors and remove the Spectre Ransomware before it damages anything.

The Spectre Ransomware's threat actors are well-organized and have put a reasonable degree of effort into crafting both this independent Trojan and the Command & Control infrastructure supporting it. As long as new, file-encoding Trojans like the Spectre Ransomware exist, being able to unlock your media after an infection is far from a sure thing.

Technical Details

File System Modifications

Tutorials: If you wish to learn how to remove malware components manually, you can read the tutorials on how to find malware, kill unwanted processes, remove malicious DLLs and delete other harmful files. Always be sure to back up your PC before making any changes.

The following files were created in the system:

file.exe

File name: file.exe
Size: 191.48 KB (191488 bytes)
MD5: e8af7ef13b6ced37d08dce0f747d7d8b
Detection count: 42
File type: Executable File
Mime Type: unknown/exe
Group: Malware file
Last Updated: June 12, 2017