VMola Ransomware
Posted: May 24, 2017
Threat Metric
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.
Ranking: | 11,707 |
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Threat Level: | 2/10 |
Infected PCs: | 3,202 |
First Seen: | May 24, 2017 |
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Last Seen: | October 6, 2023 |
OS(es) Affected: | Windows |
The VMola Ransomware is a Trojan that uses a third-party website's encryption service to lock your files and displays ransoming messages asking for payment to unlock them. While free decryption solutions to this Trojan's attacks are unlikely, you still can protect your files by backing them up to another drive before an infection takes place. For users on compatible systems, anti-malware products also can provide increased protection by deleting the VMola Ransomware during any effort to compromise your PC.
The Trojan Replacing Its Payload with Help from a Website
Although it doesn't take years of programming experience to develop an application that's capable of using simple, file-encrypting features, some con artists still find the minimal effort to be excessive. For them, Trojans like the VMola Ransomware offer an expedient way to leverage attacks, particularly ones that aren't of their creation. This Trojan, newly identified by malware analysts, 'farms out' its encryption feature to the Vmola.com website.
This domain offers free data-encoding services to all visitors, with support for an enormous range of primary ciphers theoretically, including the favorite AES-256 in Cipher-Block-Chaining mode. Besides using this site for locking the files of a compromised PC, the VMola Ransomware also takes advantage of the renaming feature to encode the filenames in Base64. It also appends a '(Encrypted_By_VMola.com)' tag just before the extension. While malware experts don't see it in use right now, the VMola Ransomware also could use the site's default features for removing any extension tags.
The Trojan follows its locking of files such as documents and pictures with a newly-generated, RTF text file. The file provides the victim almost no information, except for an encryption alert and a ransom demand for 0.1 Bitcoins (equaling 235 USD at current rates) to transfer to a wallet address.
Keeping Your Fractions of Cryptocurrency to Yourself
In comparison to the ransoms of file-enciphering Trojans often attacking servers in the business sector, the VMola Ransomware gives its victims a highly 'affordable' fee for unlocking their files. However, the fee being small doesn't equate to trustworthiness on the part of the Trojan's threat actors, who can take the Bitcoins without needing to worry about refund safely, if they don't give you any decryption service. The range of encryption possibilities the VMola Ransomware may use through Vmola.com forces malware experts to continue recommending backups as the best solution for saving your data, especially if you store those copies on another server or device.
Infection methods that malware experts see with file-encoding Trojans regularly include website Exploit Kits that abuse in-browser scripts, document macros and spam e-mails. Many of these infection vectors are preventable by using secure Web-browsing settings, as well as scanning new files with appropriate security tools. Anti-malware products of respectable pedigree should be able to remove the VMola Ransomware, but decryption is less sure than disinfection significantly.
In spite of now being embraced by threat creators, Vmola.com isn't necessarily a website with only unsafe services. Encryption, like a sword, is double-edged and must be respected for both its potential benefits, as well as its capacity for harm when wielded by Trojans like the VMola Ransomware.
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