Cyber security sleuths have warned Indian Internet users
against a potent Trojan virus in the social media and email circuit
which stealthily encrypts important documents of the user and then asks
for a 'ransom' to unlock proprietary messages.
The
audacity of the virus has been categorised as "severe" and cyber
experts say such a malicious programme has been detected for the first
time which asks for a ransom of an estimated Euro or USD 300 to unlock
the genuine files of a user through "anonymous pre-paid cash vouchers".
Once
activated in the user's email or in the operating system, the virus
jeopardises the overall security of the user's classified information.
The number of incidents, perpetrated by the virus called 'cryptolocker', however, are low in India at present.
"An
advisory has hence been issued to stop its prevalence and multiplying
capability in Indian cyberspace," an expert cyber cop said.
The notorious malware has got as may as seven aliases to hide its original character in the cyberspace.
"It
has been observed that the variants of malware family
Win32/Trojan.Cryptolocker are spreading widely. Cryptolocker is
spreading via malicious hyperlinks shared via spam emails, social media,
malicious email attachments (fake FedEx and UPS tracking notices),
drive-by-download or as a part of dropped file from other malwares.
"Cryptolocker
encrypts files located within local drives, shared network drives, USB
drives, external hard drives, network file shares and even some cloud
storage drives using RSA public-key cryptography (2048-bit), with the
private key stored only on the malware's control servers," country's
premier cyber security agency-- Computer Emergency Response Team-India
(CERT-In) said in its latest advisory to Internet enabled computer
users.
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