Ransomware Themed on “Breaking Bad” Strikes Aussie Internauts - Symantec

According to Symantec the security company, one extremely harmful PC-virus is spreading across Australia which associates with "Breaking Bad" television show broadcast from US and very popular among viewers while holding Australian Internet users at ransom in exchange of decrypting their contaminated files.

At first, the ransomware demands $450 and allows about 24 hours for making the payment after which the amount gets raised to $1,000.

There is a reference to Breaking Bad's Gustavo Fring the drug kingpin's fictitious chicken chain called Los Pollos Hermanos in the ransom asked, elaborates Symantec.

There is also one e-mail id that tells "the one who knocks" taken from a sentence by Walter White the key character in Breaking Bad as the id associates with the ransom asked.

Symantec warns that the malware hides in certain malevolent zipped folder showing one prominent courier company's name. There is one malevolent file named 'PENALTY.VBS' inside the zipped folder. On running this file, the crypto-ransomware gets downloaded on the hijacked PC along with one lawful PDF file that too gets downloaded and opened which dupes the victim into believing the earlier condensed folder wasn't harmful.

Apparently, the threat utilizes techniques related with a penetration-testing task of open source kind that utilizes PowerShell modules of Microsoft letting the attackers execute PowerShell script they themselves possess on the infected PC for running the ransomware.

When asking for the ransom, an apparently real video tutorial appears about the way Bitcoins can be obtained to make the payment via the cryptocurrency. One more YouTube movie runs behind the screen playing one song tracked in the Grand Theft Auto V game.

The malicious program locks documents, videos, images etc. on the hijacked PC, explains Symantec.

The security company states the latest crypto-ransomware sample's name is Trojan.Cryptolocker.S that commonly contaminates Windows 7, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows NT computer systems.

According to Nick Savvides, Senior Principal Systems Engineer of security at Symantec, security software of the latest version along with suitable backups should be used for countering the kind of crypto-ransomware assaults, reported arnnet.com.au in news on May 11, 2015.

» SPAMfighter News - 5/20/2015