Top Ransomware to Hit India and Here's How They Hurt

NEW DELHI, INDIA: India is one of the top five nations in the world that faces critical threat from ransomware. Last month noted Indian food and restaurant recommendation website Burrp was compromised with an advanced ransomware exploit kit. Burrp was compromised to redirect users to the Angler exploit kit (EK) in order to deliver the TeslaCrypt ransomware. Cyber criminals took over users’ computers and encrypted their files. They also demanded a ransom for decrypting the files.

Digital extortion has gone mainstream by connecting itself to the masses.

According to Vitaly Kamluk, Head of APAC International Analysis and Evaluation Workforce, Kaspersky Lab, “Ransomware is an advanced malware that forces its victims to pay a ransom online. Ransomware assaults are getting common in India like any other European countries.”

Speaking at the roundtable dialogue on Ransomware Vitaly said that India figures in the most affected nations list that have been attacked by Teslacrypt ransomware in March-Might 2016 and ranked fourth within the nations that was attacked by Locky ransomware.

In India, whereas 11,674 customers have been attacked by TeslaCrypt ransomware throughout March-Might 2016, 564 customers have been attacked by Locky ransomware.

Locky Ransomare was launched in mid-February 2016. This Home windows ransomware impacts all variations of Home windows. This email-worm and macro virus program is contained within a Microsoft Word document sent by email to thousands of computers, pretending to be an invoice of a company and making use of social-engineering tactics to lure victims into installing the ransomware as well as the enabling of "macros" if the file attached is unreadable. It has very high infection rate and has been reported to have done 4,000 new infections per hour and approximately 100,000 infections per day with Germany and the Netherlands being the most affected nations.

TeslaCrypt ransomware is now defunct. Its grasp key was launched by the builders and a free decryption device is now out there on the web.

Kamluk further stated that Karnataka (36.58 per cent) was probably the most affected state with ransomware with Tamil Nadu (16.72 per cent) keeping the second spot followed by Maharashtra (10.86 per cent), Delhi (10.00 per cent), West Bengal (6.70 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (5.33 per cent), Telangana (four.54 per cent), Kerala (three.87 per cent), Gujarat (2.35 per cent) and Haryana (1.96 per cent).

There are 5 kinds of ransomware which are breaking the internet and people’s account at the same time, most noticeably — encryption ransomware, grasp boot document (MBR) ransomware, display locker, ransomware encrypting net servers and cellular gadget ransomware (affects Android units).

To Pay, or Not to Pay?

Kamluk believes that an attacked consumer shouldn’t pay the ransom as there isn’t any guarantee that the attacker will launch a key to you. He further suggested that customers should backup their data and use trusted antivirus. Also, the private security firms and government should work together to identify key threats. “Kaspersky Lab and the Netherlands’ Nationwide Excessive Tech Crime Unit jointly developed CoinVault decryptor and that due to this initiative hundreds of decryption keys can be found for CoinVault, Bitcryptor and CryptXXX infections with the corporate”, he added.

 Ransomware Prevention

• Always check the sender of the email sender. It is important to check the legitimacy of the e-mail sender.
• Always double-check the content of the message.
• Never click on any links attached to the email.
• Keep your software up-to-date.
• Routinely backup your important data.