Ransomware

Ransomware is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data
or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid. While some simple ransomware may lock the
system so that it is not difficult for a knowledgeable person to reverse, more advanced malware uses a
technique called cryptoviral extortion. It encrypts the victim's files, making them inaccessible, and demands
a ransom payment to decrypt them.[1][2][3][4] In a properly implemented cryptoviral extortion attack,
recovering the files without the decryption key is an intractable problem – and difficult to trace digital
currencies such as paysafecard or Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that are used for the ransoms, making
tracing and prosecuting the perpetrators difficult.

Ransomware attacks are typically carried out using a Trojan disguised as a legitimate file that the user is
tricked into downloading or opening when it arrives as an email attachment. However, one high-profile
example, the WannaCry worm, traveled automatically between computers without user interaction.[5]

Starting as early as 1989 with the first documented ransomware known as the AIDS trojan, the use of
ransomware scams has grown internationally.[6][7][8] There were 181.5 million ransomware attacks in the
first six months of 2018. This record marks a 229% increase over this same time frame in 2017.[9] In June
2014, vendor McAfee released data showing that it had collected more than double the number of
ransomware samples that quarter than it had in the same quarter of the previous year.[10] CryptoLocker was
particularly successful, procuring an estimated US$3 million before it was taken down by authorities,[11]
and CryptoWall was estimated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to have accrued over
US$18 million by June 2015.[12] In 2020, the IC3 received 2,474 complaints identified as ransomware
with adjusted losses of over $29.1 million. The losses could be more than that according to FBI.[13]

Contents
Operation
History
Encrypting ransomware
Non-encrypting ransomware
Exfiltration (Leakware / Doxware)
Mobile ransomware
Notable attack targets
Notable software packages
Reveton
CryptoLocker
CryptoLocker.F and TorrentLocker
CryptoWall
Fusob
WannaCry
Petya
Bad Rabbit
 SamSam
DarkSide
Syskey
Ransomware-as-a-service
Mitigation
File system defenses against ransomware
File decryption and recovery
Growth
Criminal arrests and convictions
Zain Qaiser
Freedom of speech challenges and criminal punishment
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Operation
The concept of file-encrypting ransomware was invented and implemented by Young and Yung at
Columbia University and was presented at the 1996 IEEE Security & Privacy conference. It is called
cryptoviral extortion and it was inspired by the fictional facehugger in the movie Alien.[14] Cryptoviral
extortion is the following three-round protocol carried out between the attacker and the victim.[1]

1. [attacker→victim] The attacker generates a key pair and places the corresponding public key
in the malware. The malware is released.
2. [victim→attacker] To carry out the cryptoviral extortion attack, the malware generates a
random symmetric key and encrypts the victim's data with it. It uses the public key in the
malware to encrypt the symmetric key. This is known as hybrid encryption and it results in a
small asymmetric ciphertext as well as the symmetric ciphertext of the victim's data. It
zeroizes the symmetric key and the original plaintext data to prevent recovery. It puts up a
message to the user that includes the asymmetric ciphertext and how to pay the ransom.
The victim sends the asymmetric ciphertext and e-money to the attacker.
3. [attacker→victim] The attacker receives the payment, deciphers the asymmetric ciphertext
with the attacker's private key, and sends the symmetric key to the victim. The victim
deciphers the encrypted data with the needed symmetric key thereby completing the
cryptovirology attack.

The symmetric key is randomly generated and will not assist other victims. At no point is the attacker's
private key exposed to victims and the victim need only send a very small ciphertext (the encrypted
symmetric-cipher key) to the attacker.

Ransomware attacks are typically carried out using a Trojan, entering a system through, for example, a
malicious attachment, embedded link in a Phishing email, or a vulnerability in a network service. The
program then runs a payload, which locks the system in some fashion, or claims to lock the system but does
not (e.g., a scareware program). Payloads may display a fake warning purportedly by an entity such as a
law enforcement agency, falsely claiming that the system has been used for illegal activities, contains
content such as pornography and "pirated" media.[15][16][17]
Some payloads consist simply of an application designed to lock or restrict the system until payment is
made, typically by setting the Windows Shell to itself,[18] or even modifying the master boot record and/or
partition table to prevent the operating system from booting until it is repaired.[19] The most sophisticated
payloads encrypt files, with many using strong encryption to encrypt the victim's files in such a way that
only the malware author has the needed decryption key.[1][20][21]

Payment is virtually always the goal, and the victim is coerced into paying for the ransomware to be
removed either by supplying a program that can decrypt the files, or by sending an unlock code that undoes
the payload's changes. While the attacker may simply take the money without returning the victim's files, it
is in the attacker's best interest to perform the decryption as agreed, since victims will stop sending
payments if it becomes known that they serve no purpose. A key element in making ransomware work for
the attacker is a convenient payment system that is hard to trace. A range of such payment methods have
been used, including wire transfers, premium-rate text messages,[22] pre-paid voucher services such as
paysafecard,[6][23][24] and the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.[25][26][27]

In May 2020, vendor Sophos reported that the global average cost to remediate a ransomware attack
(considering downtime, people time, device cost, network cost, lost opportunity and ransom paid) was
$761,106. Ninety-five percent of organizations that paid the ransom had their data restored.[28]

History

Encrypting ransomware

The first known malware extortion attack, the "AIDS Trojan" written by Joseph Popp in 1989, had a
design failure so severe it was not necessary to pay the extortionist at all. Its payload hid the files on the
hard drive and encrypted only their names, and displayed a message claiming that the user's license to use a
certain piece of software had expired. The user was asked to pay US$189 to "PC Cyborg Corporation" in
order to obtain a repair tool even though the decryption key could be extracted from the code of the Trojan.
The Trojan was also known as "PC Cyborg". Popp was declared mentally unfit to stand trial for his
actions, but he promised to donate the profits from the malware to fund AIDS research.[29]

The idea of abusing anonymous cash systems to safely collect ransom from human kidnapping was
introduced in 1992 by Sebastiaan von Solms and David Naccache.[30] This electronic money collection
method was also proposed for cryptoviral extortion attacks.[1] In the von Solms-Naccache scenario a
newspaper publication was used (since bitcoin ledgers did not exist at the time the paper was written).

The notion of using public key cryptography for data kidnapping attacks was introduced in 1996 by Adam
L. Young and Moti Yung. Young and Yung critiqued the failed AIDS Information Trojan that relied on
symmetric cryptography alone, the fatal flaw being that the decryption key could be extracted from the
Trojan, and implemented an experimental proof-of-concept cryptovirus on a Macintosh SE/30 that used
RSA and the Tiny Encryption Algorithm (TEA) to hybrid encrypt the victim's data. Since public key
cryptography is used, the virus only contains the encryption key. The attacker keeps the corresponding
private decryption key private. Young and Yung's original experimental cryptovirus had the victim send the
asymmetric ciphertext to the attacker who deciphers it and returns the symmetric decryption key it contains
to the victim for a fee. Long before electronic money existed Young and Yung proposed that electronic
money could be extorted through encryption as well, stating that "the virus writer can effectively hold all of
the money ransom until half of it is given to him. Even if the e-money was previously encrypted by the
user, it is of no use to the user if it gets encrypted by a cryptovirus".[1] They referred to these attacks as
being "cryptoviral extortion", an overt attack that is part of a larger class of attacks in a field called
cryptovirology, which encompasses both overt and covert attacks.[1] The cryptoviral extortion protocol was
inspired by the parasitic relationship between H. R. Giger's facehugger and its host in the movie
Alien.[1][14]

Examples of extortionate ransomware became prominent in May 2005.[31] By mid-2006, Trojans such as
Gpcode, TROJ.RANSOM.A, Archiveus, Krotten, Cryzip, and MayArchive began utilizing more
sophisticated RSA encryption schemes, with ever-increasing key-sizes. Gpcode.AG, which was detected in
June 2006, was encrypted with a 660-bit RSA public key.[32] In June 2008, a variant known as
Gpcode.AK was detected. Using a 1024-bit RSA key, it was believed large enough to be computationally
infeasible to break without a concerted distributed effort.[33][34][35][36]

Encrypting ransomware returned to prominence in late 2013 with the propagation of CryptoLocker—using
the Bitcoin digital currency platform to collect ransom money. In December 2013, ZDNet estimated based
on Bitcoin transaction information that between 15 October and 18 December, the operators of
CryptoLocker had procured about US$27 million from infected users.[37] The CryptoLocker technique
was widely copied in the months following, including CryptoLocker 2.0 (thought not to be related to
CryptoLocker), CryptoDefense (which initially contained a major design flaw that stored the private key on
the infected system in a user-retrievable location, due to its use of Windows' built-in encryption
APIs),[26][38][39][40] and the August 2014 discovery of a Trojan specifically targeting network-attached
storage devices produced by Synology.[41] In January 2015, it was reported that ransomware-styled attacks
have occurred against individual websites via hacking, and through ransomware designed to target Linux-
based web servers.[42][43][44]

In some infections, there is a two-stage payload, common in many malware systems. The user is tricked
into running a script, which downloads the main virus and executes it. In early versions of the dual-payload
system, the script was contained in a Microsoft Office document with an attached VBScript macro, or in a
windows scripting facility (WSF) file. As detection systems started blocking these first stage payloads, the
Microsoft Malware Protection Center identified a trend away toward LNK files with self-contained
Microsoft Windows PowerShell scripts.[45] In 2016, PowerShell was found to be involved in nearly 40%
of endpoint security incidents,[46]

Some ransomware strains have used proxies tied to Tor hidden services to connect to their command and
control servers, increasing the difficulty of tracing the exact location of the criminals.[47][48] Furthermore,
dark web vendors have increasingly started to offer the technology as a service, wherein ransomware is
sold, ready for deployment on victims' machines, on a subscription basis, similarly to Adobe Creative
Cloud or Office 365.[48][49][50]

Symantec has classified ransomware to be the most dangerous cyber threat.[51]

On 28 September 2020, the computer systems at US’ biggest healthcare provider the Universal Health
Services, was hit by a ransomware attack. The UHS chain from different locations reported noticing
problems, with some locations reporting locked computers and phone systems from early Sunday (27
September).[52][51]

Non-encrypting ransomware

In August 2010, Russian authorities arrested nine individuals connected to a ransomware Trojan known as
WinLock. Unlike the previous Gpcode Trojan, WinLock did not use encryption. Instead, WinLock trivially
restricted access to the system by displaying pornographic images and asked users to send a premium-rate
SMS (costing around US$10) to receive a code that could be used to unlock their machines. The scam hit
numerous users across Russia and neighbouring countries—reportedly earning the group over US$16
million.[17][53]

In 2011, a ransomware Trojan surfaced that imitated the Windows Product Activation notice, and informed
users that a system's Windows installation had to be re-activated due to "[being a] victim of fraud". An
online activation option was offered (like the actual Windows activation process), but was unavailable,
requiring the user to call one of six international numbers to input a 6-digit code. While the malware
claimed that this call would be free, it was routed through a rogue operator in a country with high
international phone rates, who placed the call on hold, causing the user to incur large international long
distance charges.[15]

In February 2013, a ransomware Trojan based on the Stamp.EK exploit kit surfaced; the malware was
distributed via sites hosted on the project hosting services SourceForge and GitHub that claimed to offer
"fake nude pics" of celebrities.[54] In July 2013, an OS X-specific ransomware Trojan surfaced, which
displays a web page that accuses the user of downloading pornography. Unlike its Windows-based
counterparts, it does not block the entire computer, but simply exploits the behaviour of the web browser
itself to frustrate attempts to close the page through normal means.[55]

In July 2013, a 21-year-old man from Virginia, whose computer coincidentally did contain pornographic
photographs of underage girls with whom he had conducted sexualized communications, turned himself in
to police after receiving and being deceived by FBI MoneyPak Ransomware accusing him of possessing
child pornography. An investigation discovered the incriminating files, and the man was charged with child
sexual abuse and possession of child pornography.[56]

Exfiltration (Leakware / Doxware)

The converse of ransomware is a cryptovirology attack invented by Adam L. Young that threatens to
publish stolen information from the victim's computer system rather than deny the victim access to it.[57] In
a leakware attack, malware exfiltrates sensitive host data either to the attacker or alternatively, to remote
instances of the malware, and the attacker threatens to publish the victim's data unless a ransom is paid. The
attack was presented at West Point in 2003 and was summarized in the book Malicious Cryptography as
follows, "The attack differs from the extortion attack in the following way. In the extortion attack, the
victim is denied access to its own valuable information and has to pay to get it back, where in the attack that
is presented here the victim retains access to the information but its disclosure is at the discretion of the
computer virus".[58] The attack is rooted in game theory and was originally dubbed "non-zero sum games
and survivable malware". The attack can yield monetary gain in cases where the malware acquires access
to information that may damage the victim user or organization, e.g., the reputational damage that could
result from publishing proof that the attack itself was a success.

Common targets for exfiltration include:

third party information stored by the primary victim (such as customer account information or
health records);
information proprietary to the victim (such as trade secrets and product information)
embarrassing information (such as the victim's health information or information about the
victim's personal past)

Exfiltration attacks are usually targeted, with a curated victim list, and often preliminary surveillance of the
victim's systems to find potential data targets and weaknesses.[59][60]
Mobile ransomware

With the increased popularity of ransomware on PC platforms, ransomware targeting mobile operating
systems has also proliferated. Typically, mobile ransomware payloads are blockers, as there is little
incentive to encrypt data since it can be easily restored via online synchronization.[61] Mobile ransomware
typically targets the Android platform, as it allows applications to be installed from third-party
sources.[61][62] The payload is typically distributed as an APK file installed by an unsuspecting user; it may
attempt to display a blocking message over top of all other applications,[62] while another used a form of
clickjacking to cause the user to give it "device administrator" privileges to achieve deeper access to the
system.[63]

Different tactics have been used on iOS devices, such as exploiting iCloud accounts and using the Find My
iPhone system to lock access to the device.[64] On iOS 10.3, Apple patched a bug in the handling of
JavaScript pop-up windows in Safari that had been exploited by ransomware websites.[65] It recently has
been shown that ransomware may also target ARM architectures like those that can be found in various
Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, such as Industrial IoT edge devices.[66]

In August 2019 researchers demonstrated it's possible to infect DSLR cameras with ransomware.[67]
Digital cameras often use Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP - standard protocol used to transfer files.)
Researchers found that it was possible to exploit vulnerabilities in the protocol to infect target camera(s)
with ransomware (or execute any arbitrary code). This attack was presented at the Defcon security
conference in Las Vegas as a proof of concept attack (not as actual armed malware).

Notable attack targets

Notable software packages

Reveton

In 2012, a major ransomware Trojan known as Reveton began to

spread. Based on the Citadel Trojan (which, itself, is based on the
Zeus Trojan), its payload displays a warning purportedly from a
law enforcement agency claiming that the computer has been used
for illegal activities, such as downloading unlicensed software or
child pornography. Due to this behaviour, it is commonly referred
to as the "Police Trojan".[68][69][70] The warning informs the user
that to unlock their system, they would have to pay a fine using a A Reveton payload, fraudulently
voucher from an anonymous prepaid cash service such as Ukash or claiming that the user must pay a
paysafecard. To increase the illusion that the computer is being fine to the Metropolitan Police
tracked by law enforcement, the screen also displays the computer's Service
IP address, while some versions display footage from a victim's
webcam to give the illusion that the user is being recorded.[6][71]

Reveton initially began spreading in various European countries in early 2012.[6] Variants were localized
with templates branded with the logos of different law enforcement organizations based on the user's
country; for example, variants used in the United Kingdom contained the branding of organizations such as
the Metropolitan Police Service and the Police National E-Crime Unit. Another version contained the logo
of the royalty collection society PRS for Music, which specifically accused the user of illegally
downloading music.[72] In a statement warning the public about the malware, the Metropolitan Police
clarified that they would never lock a computer in such a way as part of an investigation.[6][16]

In May 2012, Trend Micro threat researchers discovered templates for variations for the United States and
Canada, suggesting that its authors may have been planning to target users in North America.[73] By
August 2012, a new variant of Reveton began to spread in the United States, claiming to require the
payment of a $200 fine to the FBI using a MoneyPak card.[7][8][71] In February 2013, a Russian citizen
was arrested in Dubai by Spanish authorities for his connection to a crime ring that had been using
Reveton; ten other individuals were arrested on money laundering charges.[74] In August 2014, Avast
Software reported that it had found new variants of Reveton that also distribute password-stealing malware
as part of its payload.[75]

CryptoLocker

Encrypting ransomware reappeared in September 2013 with a Trojan known as CryptoLocker, which
generated a 2048-bit RSA key pair and uploaded in turn to a command-and-control server, and used to
encrypt files using a whitelist of specific file extensions. The malware threatened to delete the private key if
a payment of Bitcoin or a pre-paid cash voucher was not made within 3 days of the infection. Due to the
extremely large key size it uses, analysts and those affected by the Trojan considered CryptoLocker
extremely difficult to repair.[25][76][77][78] Even after the deadline passed, the private key could still be
obtained using an online tool, but the price would increase to 10 BTC—which cost approximately
US$2300 as of November 2013.[79][80]

CryptoLocker was isolated by the seizure of the Gameover ZeuS botnet as part of Operation Tovar, as
officially announced by the U.S. Department of Justice on 2 June 2014. The Department of Justice also
publicly issued an indictment against the Russian hacker Evgeniy Bogachev for his alleged involvement in
the botnet.[81][82] It was estimated that at least US$3 million was extorted with the malware before the
shutdown.[11]

CryptoLocker.F and TorrentLocker

In September 2014, a wave of ransomware Trojans surfaced that first targeted users in Australia, under the
names CryptoWall and CryptoLocker (which is, as with CryptoLocker 2.0, unrelated to the original
CryptoLocker). The Trojans spread via fraudulent e-mails claiming to be failed parcel delivery notices from
Australia Post; to evade detection by automatic e-mail scanners that follow all links on a page to scan for
malware, this variant was designed to require users to visit a web page and enter a CAPTCHA code before
the payload is actually downloaded, preventing such automated processes from being able to scan the
payload. Symantec determined that these new variants, which it identified as CryptoLocker.F, were again,
unrelated to the original CryptoLocker due to differences in their operation.[83][84] A notable victim of the
Trojans was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; live programming on its television news channel
ABC News 24 was disrupted for half an hour and shifted to Melbourne studios due to a CryptoWall
infection on computers at its Sydney studio.[85][86][87]

Another Trojan in this wave, TorrentLocker, initially contained a design flaw comparable to
CryptoDefense; it used the same keystream for every infected computer, making the encryption trivial to
overcome. However, this flaw was later fixed.[38] By late-November 2014, it was estimated that over 9,000
users had been infected by TorrentLocker in Australia alone, trailing only Turkey with 11,700
infections.[88]
CryptoWall

Another major ransomware Trojan targeting Windows, CryptoWall, first appeared in 2014. One strain of
CryptoWall was distributed as part of a malvertising campaign on the Zedo ad network in late-September
2014 that targeted several major websites; the ads redirected to rogue websites that used browser plugin
exploits to download the payload. A Barracuda Networks researcher also noted that the payload was
signed with a digital signature in an effort to appear trustworthy to security software.[89] CryptoWall 3.0
used a payload written in JavaScript as part of an email attachment, which downloads executables
disguised as JPG images. To further evade detection, the malware creates new instances of explorer.exe and
svchost.exe to communicate with its servers. When encrypting files, the malware also deletes volume
shadow copies and installs spyware that steals passwords and Bitcoin wallets.[90]

The FBI reported in June 2015 that nearly 1,000 victims had contacted the bureau's Internet Crime
Complaint Center to report CryptoWall infections, and estimated losses of at least $18 million.[12]

The most recent version, CryptoWall 4.0, enhanced its code to avoid antivirus detection, and encrypts not
only the data in files but also the file names.[91]

Fusob

Fusob is one of the major mobile ransomware families. Between April 2015 and March 2016, about 56
percent of accounted mobile ransomware was Fusob.[92]

Like a typical mobile ransomware, it employs scare tactics to extort people to pay a ransom.[93] The
program pretends to be an accusatory authority, demanding the victim to pay a fine from $100 to $200
USD or otherwise face a fictitious charge. Rather surprisingly, Fusob suggests using iTunes gift cards for
payment. Also, a timer clicking down on the screen adds to the users’ anxiety as well.

In order to infect devices, Fusob masquerades as a pornographic video player. Thus, victims, thinking it is
harmless, unwittingly download Fusob.[94]

When Fusob is installed, it first checks the language used in the device. If it uses Russian or certain Eastern
European languages, Fusob does nothing. Otherwise, it proceeds on to lock the device and demand
ransom. Among victims, about 40% of them are in Germany with the United Kingdom and the United
States following with 14.5% and 11.4% respectively.

Fusob has lots in common with Small, which is another major family of mobile ransomware. They
represented over 93% of mobile ransomware between 2015 and 2016.

WannaCry

In May 2017, the WannaCry ransomware attack spread through the Internet, using an exploit vector named
EternalBlue, which was allegedly leaked from the U.S. National Security Agency. The ransomware attack,
unprecedented in scale,[95] infected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries,[96] using 20
different languages to demand money from users using Bitcoin cryptocurrency. WannaCry demanded
US$300 per computer.[97] The attack affected Telefónica and several other large companies in Spain, as
well as parts of the British National Health Service (NHS), where at least 16 hospitals had to turn away
patients or cancel scheduled operations,[98] FedEx, Deutsche Bahn, Honda,[99] Renault, as well as the
Russian Interior Ministry and Russian telecom MegaFon.[100] The attackers gave their victims a 7-day
deadline from the day their computers got infected, after which the encrypted files would be deleted.[101]
Petya

Petya was first discovered in March 2016; unlike other forms of encrypting ransomware, the malware
aimed to infect the master boot record, installing a payload which encrypts the file tables of the NTFS file
system the next time that the infected system boots, blocking the system from booting into Windows at all
until the ransom is paid. Check Point reported that despite what it believed to be an innovative evolution in
ransomware design, it had resulted in relatively-fewer infections than other ransomware active around the
same time frame.[102]

On 27 June 2017, a heavily modified version of Petya was used for a global cyberattack primarily targeting
Ukraine (but affecting many countries[103]). This version had been modified to propagate using the same
EternalBlue exploit that was used by WannaCry. Due to another design change, it is also unable to actually
unlock a system after the ransom is paid; this led to security analysts speculating that the attack was not
meant to generate illicit profit, but to simply cause disruption.[104][105]

Bad Rabbit

On 24 October 2017, some users in Russia and Ukraine reported a new ransomware attack, named "Bad
Rabbit", which follows a similar pattern to WannaCry and Petya by encrypting the user's file tables and
then demands a Bitcoin payment to decrypt them. ESET believed the ransomware to have been distributed
by a bogus update to Adobe Flash software.[106] Among agencies that were affected by the ransomware
were: Interfax, Odesa International Airport, Kyiv Metro, and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine.[107]
As it used corporate network structures to spread, the ransomware was also discovered in other countries,
including Turkey, Germany, Poland, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.[108] Experts believed the
ransomware attack was tied to the Petya attack in Ukraine (especially because Bad Rabbit's code has many
overlapping and analogical elements to the code of Petya/NotPetya,[109] appending to CrowdStrike Bad
Rabbit and NotPetya's DLL (dynamic link library) share 67 percent of the same code[110]) though the only
identity to the culprits are the names of characters from the Game of Thrones series embedded within the
code.[108]

Security experts found that the ransomware did not use the EternalBlue exploit to spread, and a simple
method to inoculate an unaffected machine running older Windows versions was found by 24 October
2017.[111][112] Further, the sites that had been used to spread the bogus Flash updating have gone offline or
removed the problematic files within a few days of its discovery, effectively killing off the spread of Bad
Rabbit.[108]

SamSam

In 2016, a new strain of ransomware emerged that was targeting JBoss servers.[113] This strain, named
"SamSam", was found to bypass the process of phishing or illicit downloads in favor of exploiting
vulnerabilities on weak servers.[114] The malware uses a Remote Desktop Protocol brute-force attack to
guess weak passwords until one is broken. The virus has been behind attacks on government and
healthcare targets, with notable hacks occurring against the town of Farmington, New Mexico, the
Colorado Department of Transportation, Davidson County, North Carolina, and most recently, a major
breach of security on the infrastructure of Atlanta.[114]

Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri (born in Qom, Iran in 1991) and Faramarz Shahi Savandi (born in
Shiraz, Iran, in 1984) are wanted by the FBI for allegedly launching SamSam ransomware.[115] The two
have allegedly made $6 million from extortion and caused over $30 million in damages using the
malware.[116]
DarkSide

On May 7, 2021 a cyberattack was executed on the US Colonial Pipeline. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation identified DarkSide as the perpetrator of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, perpetrated
by malicious code, that led to a voluntary shutdown of the main pipeline supplying 45% of fuel to the East
Coast of the United States. The attack was described as the worst cyberattack to date on U.S. critical
infrastructure. DarkSide successfully extorted about 75 Bitcoin (almost US$5 million) from Colonial
Pipeline. U.S. officials are investigating whether the attack was purely criminal or took place with the
involvement of the Russian government or another state sponsor. Following the attack, DarkSide posted a
statement claiming that "We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics...Our goal is to make money
and not creating problems for society."

On May 10, SentinelOne published an analysis (https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/meet-darkside-and-their

-ransomware-sentinelone-customers-protected/) of the DarkSide Ransomware attack.

In May 2021, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a joint alert urging the
owners and operators of critical infrastructure to take certain steps to reduce their vulnerability to DarkSide
ransomware and ransomware in general.

Syskey

Syskey is a utility that was included with Windows NT-based operating systems to encrypt the user account
database, optionally with a password. The tool has sometimes been effectively used as ransomware during
technical support scams—where a caller with remote access to the computer may use the tool to lock the
user out of their computer with a password known only to them.[117] Syskey was removed from later
versions of Windows 10 and Windows Server in 2017, due to being obsolete and "known to be used by
hackers as part of ransomware scams".[118][119]

Ransomware-as-a-service

Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) became a notable method after the Russia-based[120] or Russian-

speaking[121] group REvil staged operations against several targets, including the Brazil-based JBS S.A. in
May 2021, and the US-based Kaseya Limited in July 2021.[122] After a July 9, 2021 phone call between
United States president Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin, Biden told the press, "I made it
very clear to him that the United States expects when a ransomware operation is coming from his soil even
though it’s not sponsored by the state, we expect them to act if we give them enough information to act on
who that is." Biden later added that the United States would take the group's servers down if Putin did
not.[123][124] Four days later, REvil websites and other infrastructure vanished from the internet.[125]

Mitigation
If an attack is suspected or detected in its early stages, it takes some time for encryption to take place;
immediate removal of the malware (a relatively simple process) before it has completed would stop further
damage to data, without salvaging any already lost.[126][127]

Security experts have suggested precautionary measures for dealing with ransomware. Using software or
other security policies to block known payloads from launching will help to prevent infection, but will not
protect against all attacks[25][128] As such, having a proper backup solution is a critical component to
defending against ransomware. Note that, because many ransomware attackers will not only encrypt the
victim's live machine but it will also attempt to delete any hot backups stored locally or on accessible over
the network on a NAS, it's also critical to maintain "offline" backups of data stored in locations inaccessible
from any potentially infected computer, such as external storage drives or devices that do not have any
access to any network (including the Internet), prevents them from being accessed by the ransomware.
Moreover, if using a NAS or Cloud storage, then the computer should have append-only permission to the
destination storage, such that it cannot delete or overwrite previous backups. According to comodo,
applying two Attack Surface Reduction on OS/Kernel provides a materially-reduced attack surface which
results in a heightened security posture.[129][130][131]

Installing security updates issued by software vendors can mitigate the vulnerabilities leveraged by certain
strains to propagate.[132][133][134][135][136] Other measures include cyber hygiene − exercising caution
when opening e-mail attachments and links, network segmentation, and keeping critical computers isolated
from networks.[137][138] Furthermore, to mitigate the spread of ransomware measures of infection control
can be applied.[139] Such may include disconnecting infected machines from all networks, educational
programs,[140] effective communication channels, malware surveillance and ways of collective
participation[139]

File system defenses against ransomware

A number of file systems keep snapshots of the data they hold, which can be used to recover the contents
of files from a time prior to the ransomware attack in the event the ransomware does not disable it.

On Windows, the Volume shadow copy (VSS) is often used to store backups of data;
ransomware often targets these snapshots to prevent recovery and therefore it is often
advisable to disable user access to the user tool VSSadmin.exe to reduce the risk that
ransomware can disable or delete past copies.
On Windows 10, users can add specific directories or files to Controlled Folder Access
in Windows Defender to protect them from ransomware.[141] It is advised to add
backup and other important directories to Controlled Folder Access.
Unless malware gains root on the ZFS host system in deploying an attack coded to
issue ZFS administrative commands, file servers running ZFS are broadly immune to
ransomware, because ZFS is capable of snapshotting even a large file system many
times an hour, and these snapshots are immutable (read only) and easily rolled back
or files recovered in the event of data corruption.[142] In general, only an administrator
can delete (but cannot modify) snapshots.

File decryption and recovery

There are a number of tools intended specifically to decrypt files locked by ransomware, although
successful recovery may not be possible.[2][143] If the same encryption key is used for all files, decryption
tools use files for which there are both uncorrupted backups and encrypted copies (a known-plaintext attack
in the jargon of cryptanalysis. But, it only works when the cipher the attacker used was weak to begin with,
being vulnerable to known-plaintext attack); recovery of the key, if it is possible, may take several
days.[144] Free ransomware decryption tools can help decrypt files encrypted by the following forms of
ransomware: AES_NI, Alcatraz Locker, Apocalypse, BadBlock, Bart, BTCWare, Crypt888, CryptoMix,
CrySiS, EncrypTile, FindZip, Globe, Hidden Tear, Jigsaw, LambdaLocker, Legion, NoobCrypt,
Stampado, SZFLocker, TeslaCrypt, XData.[145] The No More Ransom Project is an initiative by the
Netherlands' police's National High Tech Crime Unit, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre, Kaspersky
Lab and McAfee to help ransomware victims recover their data without paying a ransom.[146] They offer a
free CryptoSheriff tool to analyze encrypted files and search for decryption tools.[147]
In addition, old copies of files may exist on the disk, which has been previously deleted. In some cases,
these deleted versions may still be recoverable using software designed for that purpose.

Growth
Ransomware malicious software was first confined to one or two countries in Eastern Europe and
subsequently spread across the Atlantic to the United States and Canada.[148] The number of cyberattacks
during 2020 was double that of 2019.[149] The first versions of this type of malware used various
techniques to disable the computers[148] by locking the victims system machine (Locker Ransomware)
[133]. Ransomware uses different tactics to extort victims. One of the most common methods is locking the
device's screen by displaying a message from a branch of local law enforcement alleging that the victim
must pay a fine for illegal activity. The ransomware may request a payment by sending an SMS message to
a premium rate number. Some similar variants of the malware display pornographic image content and
demanded payment for the removal of it.[148]

By 2011 ransomware tactics had evolved. Attackers began using electronic payment methods as well as
language localization to the affected device.

Corporations, private entities, governments, and hospitals can be affected by these malicious attacks. In
2016, a significant uptick in ransomware attacks on hospitals was noted. According to the 2017 Internet
Security Threat Report from Symantec Corp, ransomware affected not only IT systems but also patient
care, clinical operations, and billing. Online criminals may be motivated by the money available and sense
of urgency within the healthcare system.[150]

Ransomware is growing rapidly across the internet users but also for the IoT environment[148] which
creates a challenging problem to the INFOSEC while increasing the attack surface area. They are evolving
into more sophisticated attacks and, they are becoming more resistant; at the same time, they are also more
accessible than ever. Today, for a cheap price, the attackers have access to ransomware as a service. The
big problem is that millions of dollars are lost by some organizations and industries that have decided to
pay, such as the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and the MedStar Health.[151] At the end, the
pressure to offer services to the patients and keep their lives is so critical that they are forced to pay, and the
attacker knows that. The problem here is that by paying the ransom, they are funding the cybercrime.

According to Symantec 2019 ISTR report, for the first time since 2013, in 2018 there was an observed
decrease in ransomware activity with a drop of 20 percent. Before 2017, consumers were the preferred
victims, but in 2017 this changed dramatically, it moved to the enterprises. In 2018 this path accelerated
with 81 percent infections which represented a 12 percent increase.[152] The common distribution method
today is based on email campaigns.

The first reported death following a ransomware attack was at a German hospital in October 2020.[153]

An effective and successful cyber awareness training program must be sponsored from the top of the
organization with supporting policies and procedures which effectively outline ramifications of non-
compliance, frequency of training and a process for acknowledgement of training. Without sponsorship
from the “C-level” executives the training cannot be ignored. Other factors that are key to a successful
Cyber Awareness Training program is to establish a baseline identifying the level of knowledge of the
organization to establish where the users are in their knowledge prior to training and after. Whichever
approach an organization decides to implement, it is important that the organization has policies and
procedures in place that provide training that is up to date, performed frequently and has the backing of the
entire organization from the top down.
Investment in technology to detect and stop these threats must be maintained, but along with that we need
to remember and focus on our weakest link, which is the user.

Criminal arrests and convictions

Zain Qaiser

A British student, Zain Qaiser, from Barking, London was jailed for more than six years at Kingston
Crown Court for his ransomware attacks in 2019.[154] He is said to have been "the most prolific cyber
criminal to be sentenced in the UK". He became active when he was only 17. He contacted the Russian
controller of one of the most powerful attacks, believed to be the Lurk malware gang, and arranged for a
split of his profits. He also contacted online criminals from China and the US to move the money. For about
one and a half years, he posed as a legitimate supplier of online promotions of book advertising on some of
the world's most visited legal pornography websites. Each of the adverts that was promoted on the websites
contained the Reveton Ransomware strain of the malicious Angler Exploit Kit (AEK)[155] that seized
control of the machine. Investigators discovered about £700,000 of earnings, although his network may
have earned more than £4m. He may have hidden some money using cryptocurrencies. The ransomware
would instruct victims to buy GreenDot MoneyPak vouchers, and enter the code in the Reveton panel
displayed on the screen. This money entered a MoneyPak account managed by Qaiser, who would then
deposit the voucher payments into an American co-conspirator's debit card—that of Raymond Odigie
Uadiale, who was then a student at Florida International University during 2012 and 2013 and later worked
for Microsoft. Uadiale would convert the money into Liberty Reserve digital currency and deposit it into
Qaiser's Liberty Reserve account.[156]

A breakthrough in this case occurred in May 2013 when authorities from several countries seized the
Liberty Reserve servers, obtaining access to all its transactions and account history. Qaiser was running
encrypted virtual machines on his Macbook Pro with both Mac and Windows operating systems.[157] He
could not be tried earlier because he was sectioned under the UK Mental Health Act at Goodmayes
Hospital (where he was found to be using the hospital Wi-Fi to access his advertising sites.) His lawyer
claimed that Qaiser had suffered from mental illness.[154] Russian police arrested 50 members of the Lurk
malware gang in June 2016.[158] Uadiale, a naturalized US citizen of Nigerian descent, was jailed for 18
months.[159]

Freedom of speech challenges and criminal punishment

The publication of proof-of-concept attack code is common among academic researchers and vulnerability
researchers. It teaches the nature of the threat, conveys the gravity of the issues, and enables
countermeasures to be devised and put into place. However, lawmakers with the support of law-
enforcement bodies are contemplating making the creation of ransomware illegal. In the state of Maryland,
the original draft of HB 340 made it a felony to create ransomware, punishable by up to 10 years in
prison.[160] However, this provision was removed from the final version of the bill.[161] A minor in Japan
was arrested for creating and distributing ransomware code.[162] Young and Yung have had the ANSI C
source code to a ransomware cryptotrojan on-line, at cryptovirology.com, since 2005 as part of a
cryptovirology book being written. The source code to the cryptotrojan is still live on the Internet and is
associated with a draft of Chapter 2.[163]

See also
Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack – Ransomware attack on American oil pipeline system
 BlueKeep (security vulnerability)
Hitler-Ransomware
Jigsaw (ransomware)
Append-only – Property of computer data storage
Riskware
Ryuk (ransomware) – Type of ransomware
Reliability engineering – Sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes
dependability
Air gap (networking) – Network security measure
Data redundancy
Double switching
Fault tolerance – Resilience of systems to component failures or errors
Reliability (computer networking)
Unidirectional network
fault-tolerant computer system
ZFS – File system
Byzantine fault – Fault in a computer system that presents different symptoms to different
observers
Quantum Byzantine agreement
Two Generals' Problem – Thought experiment

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(PDF). Cryptovirology Labs. Retrieved 16 August 2017.

Further reading
Young, A.; Yung, M. (2004). Malicious Cryptography: Exposing Cryptovirology. Wiley.
ISBN 978-0-7645-4975-5.
Russinovich, Mark (7 January 2013). "Hunting Down and Killing Ransomware" (http://blogs.t
echnet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2013/01/07/3543763.aspx). Microsoft TechNet.
Microsoft.
Simonite, Tom (4 February 2015). "Holding Data Hostage: The Perfect Internet Crime?
Ransomware (Scareware)" (http://www.technologyreview.com/news/534516/holding-data-h
ostage-the-perfect-internet-crime/). MIT Technology Review.
Brad, Duncan (2 March 2015). "Exploit Kits and CryptoWall 3.0" (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20150924083938/http://www.rackspace.com/blog/exploit-kits-and-cryptowall-3-0/). The
Rackspace Blog! & NewsRoom. Archived from the original (http://www.rackspace.com/blog/
exploit-kits-and-cryptowall-3-0/) on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
"Ransomware on the Rise: FBI and Partners Working to Combat This Cyber Threat" (https://
www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015/january/ransomware-on-the-rise). NEWS. Federal Bureau of
Investigation. 20 January 2015.
Yang, T.; Yang, Y.; Qian, K.; Lo, D.C.T.; Qian, L. & Tao, L. (2015). 2015 IEEE 17th
International Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications, 2015
IEEE 7th International Symposium on Cyberspace Safety and Security, and 2015 IEEE 12th
International Conference on Embedded Software and Systems. IEEE Internet of Things
Journal, CONFERENCE, AUGUST 2015. pp. 1338–1343. doi:10.1109/HPCC-CSS-
ICESS.2015.39 (https://doi.org/10.1109%2FHPCC-CSS-ICESS.2015.39). ISBN 978-1-
4799-8937-9. S2CID 5374328 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:5374328).
Richet, Jean-Loup (July 2015). "Extortion on the Internet: the Rise of Crypto-Ransomware"
(https://blogs.harvard.edu/jeanlouprichet/files/2015/07/Extortion_on_the_Internet_Rise_of_C
rypto_Ransomware.pdf) (PDF). Harvard University.
Liska, Allan (20 October 2021). "Ransomware - Understand. Prevent. Recover" (https://rans
omware.org/). Recorded Future. ActualTech Media.

External links
Media related to Ransomware at Wikimedia Commons
Incidents of Ransomware on the Rise (https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015/january/ranso
mware-on-the-rise) – Federal Bureau of Investigation

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