Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Popcorn Time Ransomware: Free decryption - if you infect other users

Popcorn Time: Experts from malwarehunterteam.com find new Ransomware.


Security experts from malwarehunterteam.com have encountered a new variant of extortion trojans. The pest with the name "Popcorn Time" - not to be confused with the set streaming app - encoded exactly as Locky, Petya and Co. data of a victim and demands a ransom for their release. The costs are with Popcorn Time with a bitcoin (currently 737,28 euro). Alternatively, the victim will be given the opportunity to return to his data free of charge - by finding at least two new victims, infecting them with "popcorn time", and paying the ransom on their part.


This works through an individualized link that the first victim has to send to potential new ones. Through built-in identification numbers in the link, the cybercriminals can track who was the originator of a successful infection. If the distributor is a current victim, whose data has been encrypted, the person is given a code to decrypt his compromised data. So it is at least on screenshots of Popcorn Time, which malwarehunterteam.com on Twitter has published. There is no guarantee that cybercriminals will stick to it.


The security experts report that the malicious code of "popcorn time" is still in development. Behind a specified individualized linkaddress was still no goal. At the same time, sacrifices are therefore spared the temptation to make themselves punishable by spreading blackmail trojans. According to their own data, the wire-pullers are IT students from Syria who want to use the ransom for building their war-torn country. Whether this is true, no source can verify here.


In the United States, Ransomware is the largest online threat. Such blackmail trojans sneak in on a system, encrypt large amounts of important data and demand a high ransom for their release. Pay the user in Bitcoin. This is a purely digital, so-called crypto diet, created among other things for the highest possible anonymity. What you need to know about Ransomware and how to protect yourself is explained in the linked article

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