THREAT REMOVAL



Ransomware campaigns have been active all year round. However, with the Christmas holidays almost here, malicious actors seem to be more active and determined. Security experts from FortiNet and Heimdal have reported that two of the most famous ransomware families – CryptoLocker and CryptoWall – have been employed in brand new encrypting crusades.

What users should know is that these most recent campaigns are initiated exclusively by spam emails.

Business-themed emails spreading ransomware

Security vendors have just disclosed that the best way to avoid a ransomware attack is to stay away from spam. Users shouldn’t trust emails with subject lines containing information about unpaid bills and shipping notice. Such emails typically contain suspicious attachments and malicious links that redirect to pages hosting exploit kits. The payload of such schemes is obvious – you either get CryptoWall or CryptoLocker.

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CryptoWall Distributed via Tech Support Scams

CryptoWall Ransomware Family

The list of ransomware disseminated via spam campaigns may just turn a bit longer, as we have seen new forms of ransomware employing RSA-4096 algorithm. CryptoWall 4.0 has also surfaced the Web, getting ahead of our predictions for 2016.

CryptoWall 3.0, CryptoLocker 2.0 spread in current malicious operations

As reported by researchers at Heimdal Security, a spam storm has hit Scandinavian users infecting them with CryptoLocker version 2.0. Even though this version is not the latest one, it is still quite harming to the user.

FortiNet, on the other hand, has reported that CryptoWall 3.0 is currently being distributed via malicious Word documents attached in emails. Over 190 different file types are being targeted for encryption.

Our research team has also been observing an increased number of TeslaCrypt ransomware cases on French and Spanish speaking users.

How to stay protected against ransomware and save the Christmas spirit

The very first thing to remember is: don’t trust unexpected and weirdly themed emails. Malicious actors are often acting as legitimate companies and governmental entities, but the truth is they’re just trying to trick you into downloading malware.

Unfortunately, not trusting untrustworthy emails is not always enough. Even experienced and well-informed users have fallen victims to cyber crooks that employ efficient phishing techniques. Fortunately, there are several steps that can improve your security against spam.

Anti-Spam Protection Tips

Employ anti-spam software, spam filters, aimed at examining incoming email. Such software serves to isolate spam from regular emails. Spam filters are designed to identify and detect spam, and prevent it from ever reaching your inbox. Make sure to add a spam filter to your email. Gmail users can refer to Google’s support page.

Don’t reply to dubious email messages and never interact with their content. Even an ‘unsubscribe’ link within the message body can turn out to be suspicious. If you respond to such a message, you will just send a confirmation of your own email address to cyber crooks.

Create a secondary email address to use whenever you need to register for a web service or sign up for something. Giving away your true email address on random websites is never a good idea.

Your email name should be tough to crack. Research indicates that email addresses with numbers, letters and underscores are tougher to crack and generally get less spam emails.

View your emails in plain text, and there’s a good reason why. Spam that is written in HTML may have code designed to redirect you to unwanted pages (e.g. advertising). Also, images within the email body can be used to ‘phone home’ spammers because they can use them to locate active emails for future spam campaigns. Thus, viewing emails in plain text appears to be the better option. To do so, navigate to your email’s main menu, go to Preferences and select the option to read emails in plain text.

Avoid posting your email address or a link to it on web pages. Spam bots and web spiders can locate email addresses. Thus, if you need to leave your email address, do it as it follows: NAME [at] MAIL [dot] com or something similar. You can also look for a contact form on the website – filling out that form shouldn’t reveal your email address or your identity.

Also, don’t forget to keep your system protected against malware at all times.



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