Whatafuck Ransomware

The Whatafuck Ransomware is a Trojan that locks your files before asking you to contact its threat actor for negotiating a ransom. Its administrators are using manual installation exploits to launch the Trojan after they gain remote access to the system. Although free decryption tools and backups can offer help with retrieving any locked data, malware experts also suggest having proactive anti-malware products for removing the Whatafuck Ransomware before any encryption can happen.

The Simplest Way of Installing Trojans Ever Conceived

Due to the relatively large footprint that threat like worms and viruses possess, many threat actors look into alternate ways of installing their threatening programs. In most cases, they segregate the installation method of choice from the threat in question, which allows them to compartmentalize the two and adjust distribution strategies as necessary. However, the install exploit doesn't need to be complex; for example, the Whatafuck Ransomware is being installed manually on breached corporate networks currently. Malware researchers can assign confirmed Whatafuck Ransomware attacks only to Russian-speaking business sectors. Con artists may be brute-forcing login details or gaining access through e-mail-based attacks. They then install the Whatafuck Ransomware and remove all other traces of the security compromise from the PC, keeping victims from identifying the danger until the Trojan encrypts their files. Malware experts also are seeing evidence of the Whatafuck Ransomware including some built-in stealth features such as selectively editing the Windows event log via WevtUtil.

Along with locking the PC's files, the Whatafuck Ransomware also inserts the contact address of its threat actor into their names and creates ransoming instructions ('WHATAFUCK.txt') that contain the personal identification number for the infection. Malware experts have yet to determine other details of the extorted payments, although most con artists will request money through methods that you can't refund.

Keeping Extortionists from Installing What They Need to Take What They Want

The admins managing the Whatafuck Ransomware's attacks are sufficiently comfortable with standard threat-introducing strategies to compromise business sector systems while removing all of the symptoms that usually accompany such infections. Preventing such Remote Desktop-based infections often requires reexamining a PC's vulnerability to brute-force password 'guessing' techniques. When poor password use isn't at fault for giving remote attackers access to your system directly, exposure to corrupted e-mail content may be the responsible infection vector.

You can scan unusual attachments and other, incoming files with security software to determine which ones might include drive-by-download exploits, such as corrupted macros. Rotating unique passwords and abiding by strict password standards (such as using complex alphanumeric strings) also is highly recommended for protecting your PC. Since malware analysts can't verify whether this threat is subject to the usual free decryption methods, victims may need to have backups or remove the Whatafuck Ransomware before it attacks to keep the data loss from being irreversible.

The Whatafuck Ransomware's campaign is a high-stakes game that threat authors are playing for high ransoms from the businesses they damage equally. Any for-profit entity worthy of the description should have appropriate protocols in place to keep harmful software from doing what it wants with their files or risk becoming another tick in a Trojan's profit column.