There are several different ways attackers choose the organizations they target with ransomware. But because finding and extracting such information is a very tricky proposition for attackers, encryption ransomware is by far the most common type. There is also a variation, called leakware or doxware, in which the attacker threatens to publicize sensitive data on the victim’s hard drive unless a ransom is paid. But most attacks don’t bother with this pretense. In some forms of malware, the attacker might claim to be a law enforcement agency shutting down the victim’s computer due to the presence of pornography or pirated software on it, and demanding the payment of a “fine,” perhaps to make victims less likely to report the attack to authorities. The user is presented with a message explaining that their files are now are now inaccessible and will only be decrypted if the victim sends an untraceable Bitcoin payment to the attacker. But the most important thing to know is that at the end of the process, the files cannot be decrypted without a mathematical key known only by the attacker. If you want the technical details, the Infosec Institute has a great in-depth look at how several flavors of ransomware encrypt files. There are several things the malware might do once it’s taken over the victim’s computer, but by far the most common action is to encrypt some or all of the user’s files. Some other, more aggressive forms of ransomware, like NotPetya, exploit security holes to infect computers without needing to trick users. Once they’re downloaded and opened, they can take over the victim’s computer, especially if they have built-in social engineering tools that trick users into allowing administrative access. ![]() One of the most common delivery systems is phishing spam - attachments that come to the victim in an email, masquerading as a file they should trust. There are a number of vectors ransomware can take to access a computer. The costs can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands, payable to cybercriminals in Bitcoin. Users are shown instructions for how to pay a fee to get the decryption key. The attacker then demands a ransom from the victim to restore access to the data upon payment. And in January, the Justice Department announced that they had shut down Hive by coordinating with law enforcement in Germany and the Netherlands to seize the group’s servers.Ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts a victim’s files. “We can go to the victim and say, you have a problem on your network, and we can tell them what to go look for.”īy preventing possible attacks, the FBI and DOJ estimate they saved victims about $130 million in ransom payments. “We’re able to see who the victims were,” he said. Still, because the FBI agents were already on the inside, they were able to prevent those would-be victims from losing access to their files before it was too late, Mike McPherson, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Tampa office, told Click Here. While the agents were undercover in Hive’s network, the hackers kept hacking. What’s different is that we did that through lawful authority given to us by a court.” ![]() ![]() We created the decryption keys and got those to the victims. “We gained access to the network, looked around, saw what we could do with it, and then we operated as them. “What the FBI team in Tampa did here was essentially the same model that the criminals utilized,” Bryan Smith, section chief for the FBI’s Cyber Criminal Operations Section, said on the podcast Click Here. All in all, they provided some 300 decryption keys to victims over that seven months. Meanwhile, they were generating decryption keys and giving them to victims to recover their data. Agents at the FBI Tampa Field Office acted as a subsidiary in the Hive network, with full access.
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