Ransomware has been considered as one of biggest cyber threats that bring smoke out of security experts. Following WannaCry, NotPetya, and many more, nRansom has taken the baton of ransomware in the market with a different approach to victims.
Ransomware has been considered as one of biggest cyber threats that bring smoke out of security experts. Following WannaCry, NotPetya, and many more, nRansom has taken the baton of ransomware in the market with a different approach to victims.Market analysts predict 6000 plus variants of ransomware every day! Easy and effective ROI for the criminals, and a nightmare for security professionals and organizations, and also for the common public! Ransomware Impacts so many people, especially on SME sector, where adequate security mechanisms are not in place, and no proper backup to restore! Once affected, you have pay ransom through cryptocurrency, typically Bitcoin within the short time span mentioned by the attackers. Criminals have come with a different approach which will affect the victims mentally by demanding nude photos as the ransom to unlock the files.Researchers from MalwareHunterTeam, a group of researchers focusing on ransomware, have discovered a new strain of ransomware, called nRansom, that blocks target systems, but instead of demanding money which is the usually followed procedure to unlock the computer, nRansom demands nude photos. It's not clear how many people have been affected with this ransomware, or how serious the crisis is.The ransom note: "Your computer has been locked," which then asks the victim to email the hackers. "After we reply, you must send at least ten nude pictures of you. After that, we will have to verify that the nudes belong to you."
nRansom is a blocker and does not seem to encrypt your files. It will simply block access to your files. "It is a screen locker, so files aren't encrypted," MalwareHunterTeam told Motherboard in a Twitter direct message. "We have no information about anyone getting infected with this." The ransom note on the screen instructs the victim to send ten nude photos, which is the only way out to get back the access to the infected files. The condition also adds that the nude photos should belong to the victim itself. It seems that the attacker will somehow verify if the photos belong to the victim itself. After verification only, the unlock code will be sent to the victim.nRansom, at present, is believed to affect only Windows users. It has been only seen as a file extension called nRansom.exe. VirusTotal and Hybrid Analysis, two of the leading public malware repositories have classified nRansom.exe as malicious suggesting that the malware is legitimate. We are still trying to find out what the criminals are planning out with these nude photos. They may use to blackmail the victim aiming to get more photos or money. But, there is no clear-cut idea about their plans.It is strictly advised by the experts that you should never pay the ransom. Here the ransom is much more valuable than money or Bitcoins. Kaspersky Internet Security has detected nRansom as Trojan-Ransom.MSIL.Agent.zz and neutralized it right away. In case the blocker has somehow sneaked onto your PC, you can unblock the computer by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F4 simultaneously. It’s necessary to run a full scan of your system after that.SecureReading will update on nRansom with more detailed information soon.