Takahiro Locker Ransomware

Posted: October 19, 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:	9

First Seen:	October 19, 2016
Last Seen:	January 9, 2019
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The Takahiro Locker Ransomware is a Trojan that attacks your data with an encryption routine while claiming to be a lawfully-instituted penalty for the user's theoretically illegal file-sharing behavior. Since the Takahiro Locker Ransomware is threatening software with no legal backing, malware experts don't advise that you pay the 'fee' since may not restore your encrypted content. Appropriate anti-malware products should block the Takahiro Locker Ransomware before it can affect your PC or, in other cases, remove it afterward.

When Japanese Legal Problems Become Your PC's Problem

Although the motivations behind the creation of file encrypting Trojans almost always center around making money, the philosophies of threat deployment for this purpose often differ drastically. As a modern example, the Takahiro Locker Ransomware is a Trojan that themes its attacks after the meme-popularized lawyer Takahiro Karasawa, putting Japanese PCs at particular risk. Although the Takahiro Locker Ransomware uses an unconventional style of pop-up messaging, its basic attacks remain conventional by focusing around harmful data encryption that it follows up with ransom attempts.

The Takahiro Locker Ransomware installs itself with fake Chrome update components, including mislabeled Registry entries that help it launch automatically and contact a remote server. Its first significant action is scanning your PC for data worth encrypting, of which malware experts took note of the following formats:

Notepad TXT documents.
Compressed archives, such as ZIP and RAR.
Web content such as HTML, PHP, and LNK.
Adobe PDF documents.
Torrents.
Images such as BMP, JPG and PNG.
MP3 and MP4 audio.

Victims shouldn't expect current versions of the Takahiro Locker Ransomware to include custom extensions (such as '.takahiro'), but any enciphered content is, as always, unusable without being decrypted.

The Takahiro Locker Ransomware concludes its payload with an HTA pop-up window displaying an image of the famous online abuse-specialist lawyer, in addition to a Bitcoin address for ransoming purposes and a countdown timer before the threat actor deletes your data.

Rejecting Accusations from a Lawyer-Themed Trojan

The Takahiro Locker Ransomware is one of a current minority of file encryption Trojans that claim that their actions are legally-endorsed penalties for the victim's illicit Web-browsing activities. However, the Takahiro Locker Ransomware has no legitimate connections to either Takahiro Karasawa or any branch of the Japanese government, and paying its Bitcoin ransom is not recommended. Some PC users may detect the initial encryption attack due to an accompanying pop-up, separate from its HTA message, displaying the text 'WARNING RUNNING KILL ME' within a standard error window.

Removing the Takahiro Locker Ransomware and recovering your data should use means of bypassing the corrupted Registry (such as booting from USB devices). Current rates of detecting the Takahiro Locker Ransomware among major AV brands are roughly even with detection failures, although updating your anti-malware products to their most recent databases may improve those chances. Regardless of the damages to your files, the Takahiro Locker Ransomware doesn't harm the Windows operating system or other, default locations for executable programs, limiting the consequences of an infection to personal or work-related media.

The Takahiro Locker Ransomware and threats like them aren't just North American or European phenomena. No matter what nation you live in, keeping clean downloading habits, scanning all new files, and being careful about your update sources all can eliminate infection paths that would let the Takahiro Locker Ransomware make an easy profit off of your PC's saved content.

Takahiro Locker Ransomware

Threat Metric

When Japanese Legal Problems Become Your PC's Problem

Rejecting Accusations from a Lawyer-Themed Trojan

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