Ransomware Not Going Away, Cautions Google

Google from one fresh research on ransomware found that individuals and organizations had parted with $25m-and-more during 2015-16 for restoring their computer files that hackers snatched control of and blackmailed for a ransom.

Ransomware assaults employ malware which infects the victim's PC and encrypts its data-files to the extent of blocking that user's access to them. Thereafter, the criminals retain the decryption key to give it over to the victim till he pays the ransom demanded. The payment usually is through the bitcoin crypto-currency whose tracing is hard.

With the help of scripts that researchers wrote they examined each binary, deciphered different addresses of Bitcoin wallets and payment websites and then sent over the data to specialists of Chainalysis for determining whether Bitcoin traveled those wallets while what its destination was.

Since ransomware binaries made a huge dataset, the researchers got a good idea of the total ransomware payments occurring over the last 3 years-and-6-months, as also the way those payments developed. Bleepingcomputer.com posted this, July 27, 2017.

In the healthcare unit of the economy, ransomware continues to be a problem. During the current week, Pennsylvania-based Health Care Group for Women reported certain ransomware assault which lasted a month possibly compromising 300,000 patients' records. An investigation conducted into another ransomware assault revealed the Peachtree Neurological Clinic of Atlanta detecting the attack that compromised data for 15 months. Cerber and Locky ransomware strains were the most prevalent families.

Talking on BBC News, Elie Bursztein, security researcher with Google said the ransomware danger, which was getting worse, wasn't any longer attributed to only tech-savvy criminals. Nearly everyone was trying the game as ransomware had become an extremely profitable business with the crime sure to continue.

The researchers for their work used victims' reports as well as detected files which had infected systems followed with running those malware onto their own PCs for redoing the process. After this they watched the network traffic which victimized users generated for determining the last destination of the money.

The latest ransomware assaults victimized TNT Express, FedEx, Merck the pharmaceutical giant, Maersk the shipping major, and KQED, the radio station of San Francisco.

» SPAMfighter News - 8/3/2017