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A security researcher has compiled a ransomware removal and rescue kit to help victims deal with ransomware threats and unlock encrypted files without paying off a single penny to the cyber crooks. Ransomware is a growing threat to the evolution of cyber criminals techniques in an attempt to part you from your money. Typically, the malicious software either lock victim's computer system or encrypt the documents and files on it or in some cases both, to extort money from victims. Most often ransomware victims end up paying off crooks either due to the threat of losing their important files or in panic as the threat pretends to be from some government agency. Though IT professionals and security companies have been dealing and fighting back with the ransomware threats, security professional Jada Cyrus has compiled a " Ransomware Rescue Kit "  or "Ransomware Removal Kit"  and made it available for free online. Ransomware removal kit - Download

Are you one of those Windows users who have found themselves as victims of the CoinVault Ransomware ? If Yes, then we have a Good news for you: Victims of CoinVault ransomware can now decrypt their files encrypted by malware using a free tool released by Kaspersky Lab. With the Help of The National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) of the Dutch Police, Security Researchers at Kaspersky Labs have developed ' CoinVault Ransomware Decryptor ' that decrypts files locked by ransomware like CoinVault. Ransomware malware is a growing cyber threat in which hackers primarily gain access to a user's system and demand a ransom be paid. Ransomware malware infects a computer or device to restrict the user's access to the infected computer. Typically, the ransomware malware will either 'lock' the computer to prevent normal usage or encrypt the files on it to prevent access. Recently, during an investigation of the CoinVault ransomware, the Dutch police we

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

When it comes to cyber security, even big organizations lack the basic knowledge of how to protect company's data from the outside. Everyday businesses are facing the threat of phishing, ransomware , data breaches and malware attacks that not only results in millions of dollars losses, but also damaged the reputations. A new study shows that five out of six of the most serious IT security threats directly relate to phishing or the aftermath of a successful phishing attack . SEA, short for Syrian Electronic Army , is famous for its advanced phishing attack capabilities and with the help of the same technique they fooled many popular organizations, social media and news media, including Twitter, Microsoft, Skype, Forbes, eBay and Paypal. Where do we lack? According to the annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations report, about 58% of cyber security incidents were caused by employees, either due to failure in handling data or approving malicious data. So, in

Cyber criminals have started targeting government enforcement of the Ransomware in an attempt to extort money. Recently, the police department of the Midlothian Village in Illinois has paid a ransom of over $600 in Bitcoins to an unknown hacker after being hit by a popular ransomware attack. The popular Ransomware, dubbed Cryptoware , disabled a police computer in Midlothian — located south of Chicago — by making it inaccessible through its file-encryption capabilities and forced them to pay a ransom in order to restore access to the important police records. The Chicago Tribune reported that the department first encountered Cryptoware in January, when someone in the department opened a spear-phishing email that pointed to the malicious software. Once opened, the email carrying the Cryptoware ransomware immediately encrypts the files on the computer and, in typical ransomware style, displays a message demanding money in exchange for a decrypt code that could free the

Ransomware  malware threat has forced somebody for the terrible suicide and once again has marked its history by somebody's blood. Sad, but it's True! Joseph Edwards , a 17-year-old schoolboy from Windsor, Berkshire, hanged himself after receiving a bogus email appeared to be from police claiming that he'd been spotted browsing illegal websites and that a fine of 100 pound needed to be paid in order to stop the police from pursuing him. The scam email pushed the well-known Police Ransomware onto the boy's laptop and also downloaded malware that locked up his system once it was opened. Edwards was an A-level student with Autism, a developmental disability, that likely made him more susceptible to believing the Internet scam mail, supposedly sent from from Cheshire police, was genuine, a coroner heard on Thursday. Edwards was so upset and depressed by the accusation and the extortionate demand that he hanged himself hours after falling victim to the crucial threat. He was foun

We have seen a series of Ransomware tended to be simple with dogged determinations to extort money from victims. But with the exponential rise in the samples of Ransomware last year, we saw more subtle in design, including " Cryptolocker " that was taken down along with the " Gameover ZeuS " botnet last June. As a result, another improved ransomware packages have sprung up to replace it — CryptoWall . Ransomware is an emerging threat in the evolution of cybercriminals techniques to part you from your money. Typically, the malicious software either lock victim's computer system or encrypt the documents and files on it, in order to extort money from the victims. Since last year, criminals have generated an estimated US$1 million profits. Now, the infamous Cryptowall ransomware is back with the newest and improved version of the file-encrypting ransomware program, which has been spotted compromising victims by researchers early this week, security research

Security researchers have uncovered a malvertising campaign used to distribute malware to visitors of The Huffington Post website, as well as several other sites, through malicious advertisements served over the AOL  advertising  network . At the end of last year, Cyphort Labs, security firm specialized in detecting malware threats, came across some malicious advertisements that were being served on the United States and Canadian versions of the popular news website The Huffington Post . The malicious advertisements eventually redirected visitors of the news website to other websites hosting exploit kits, in order to attack victims' computers and install malware. Researchers discovered that the malvertising campaign originates with ads being served by AOL's Advertising.com network. Once clicked, users are redirected through a series of redirects, some of which used HTTPS encrypted connections, to a page that served either the Neutrino Exploit Kit or the Sweet Orange E

It's a bad day for Sony yesterday!! Sony appears to be hacked once again by hackers, but this time not its PlayStation , instead its Sony Pictures Entertainment – the company's motion picture, television production and distribution unit. According to multiple reports, the corporate computers of Sony Picture employees in New York and around the world were infiltrated by a hacker, displaying a weird skeleton, a series of URL addresses, and a threatening message that reads: "Hacked By #GOP Warning: We've already warned you, and this is just a beginning. We continue till our request be met. We've obtained all your internal data, including your secrets and top secrets. If you don't obey us, we'll release data shown below to the world. Determine what will you do till November the 24th, 11:00 PM (GMT)." News broke after a user, who claimed to be a former Sony staff, posted allegations of the security breach with the defacement image on Reddit . Hack

Users of Android operating system are warned of a new variant of Android malware Koler that spreads itself via text message and holds the victim's infected mobile phone hostage until a ransom is paid. Researchers observed the Koler Android ransomware Trojan , at the very first time, in May when the Trojan was distributed through certain pornographic websites under the guise of legitimate apps. It locks the victim's mobile screen and then demands money from users with fake notifications from law enforcement agencies accusing users of viewing and storing child pornography. ANDROID SMS WORM Recently, researchers from mobile security firm AdaptiveMobile has discovered a new variant of the rare piece of mobile malware – named Worm.Koler – that allows the malware to spread via text message spam and attempts to trick users into opening a shortened bit.ly URL, turning Koler into an SMS worm. Once the device is infected by the Koler variant, it will first send an SMS mess

When I say Ransomware, the first nasty piece of malware strikes in the mind is CryptoLocker . A nasty strain of ransomware malware that threatened most of the people around the world by effectively destroying important files of the victims forever. CRYPTOLOCKER - A DEVASTATING THREAT CryptoLocker is a simple rather a devastating piece of Ransomware that encrypts the files on a victim's computer and issues an ultimatum - Pay up or lose your data. CryptoLocker is particularly designed to extort money from computer users by holding computer files hostage until the computer user pays a ransom fee to get them back. Cryptolocker hijacker sniffs out your personal files and wraps them with strong AES-256-bit encryption before it demands money. HOW TO DECRYPT CRYPTOLOCKER? FREE TOOL RELEASED Thanks to security experts, who created an online service where victims whose systems have been encrypted by the CryptoLocker ransomware can get the decryption keys for free. This o

In a previous story, I reported about a new ransomware threat known as Simplocker discovered by researchers at the security firm ESET, targeting Android users in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, India and Russia, for ransom. Simplocker (Android/Simplocker.A) is the latest Android ransomware that has ability to encrypt the files using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) on the Android device SD cards demanding users pay a ransom of 260 UAH ( Ukrainian hryvnias ), which is roughly equal to $21 US, for those files to be decrypted. To hide their track, the malware author is using the Command-and-Control server hosted on TOR .onion domain, which makes it difficult to trace the server's physical location or determine who is operating it. The malware collects information about the users' phone such as IMEI number, Operating System, phone model and manufacturer to send it all to Command-and-Control server. STUDENT CRACKS SIMPLOCKER RANSOMWARE Now, an undergraduate stu

A cyber campaign that was targeting iPhone and iPad owners with a sophisticated Ransomware in Australia and New Zealand last month, drawn special attention of online media and security analysts. Russian Authorities have arrested two young hackers from Moscow for their alleged involvement in compromising Apple ID accounts and then using ' Apple's Find My iPhone ' service to hold iOS devices for ransom. A Russian man aged 23 and a teenager aged 17 had been taken into custody in the Southern Administrative District of Moscow for their part in " blocking of Apple devices to extort funds ," claims the press release on the Russian Interior Ministry's website on Tuesday. According to the authorities, one of the suspects used phishing websites to trick victims into giving up their Apple ID username and password. The second suspect's activities are exactly same of the ' Oleg Pliss attack '. " The first involved gaining access to the victim's Apple ID by means of the c

Ransomware is an emerging threat in the evolution of cybercriminals techniques to part you from your money. Typically, the malicious software either lock victim's computer system or encrypt the documents and files on it, in order to extort money from the victims. Though earlier we saw the samples of Ransomware tended to be simple with dogged determinations to extort money from victims. But with the exponential rise in the samples of Ransomware malwares, the recent ones are more subtle in design, including Cryptolocker , Icepole , PrisonLocker , CryptoDefense and its variants. Now, the ransomware dubbed as Crytowall , a latest variant of the infamous ransomware Cryptolocker is targeting users by forcing them to download the malicious software by through advertising on the high profile domains belonging to Disney, Facebook, The Guardian newspaper and others. Cryptolocker is designed by the same malware developer who created the sophisticated CryptoDefense ( Trojan.Crypt

We have seen cybercriminals targeting PCs with Ransomware malware that encrypts your files or lock down your computer and ask for a ransom amount to be paid in a specified duration of time to unlock it. To deliver the Ransomware malwares to the mobile devices, cyber criminals have already started creating malicious software programs for android devices. Last month, we reported about a new Police Ransomware malware that locks up the devices until the victims pay a ransom to get the keys to unlock the phone. But, the malware just lock the mobile screen and a loophole in the its implementation allowed users to recover their device and data stored on SDcard. Now, in an effort to overcome this, threat actors have adopted encryption in the development of mobile Ransomware malwares. Recently, the security firm ESET has discovered a new Android ransomware, dubbed as Android/Simplocker.A , that has ability to encrypt the files on the device SD card and then demand a ransom from the victim

Ransomware is one of the most blatant and obvious money making schemes for cybercriminals and it was most likely to be known when last year Cryptolocker ransomware targeted millions of computers worldwide. Recently, security researchers at the Antivirus firm TrendLabs have unearthed another sophisticated variant of the ransomware malware which is employing  Windows PowerShell  in an effort to encrypt files on the victims' computer. The firm detected the variant as TROJ_POSHCODER.A . Windows PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management framework from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language. It provides full access to COM and WMI, enabling administrators to perform administrative tasks on both local and remote Windows systems as well as WS-Management and CIM enabling management of remote Linux systems and network devices. It is believed that cybercriminals have used this feature of Windows just in order to make

From last few years Ransomware malwares are targeting Windows users Worldwide and experts predicted that it was just a matter of time until ransomware would hit mobile devices and other Desktop operating systems like Mac, iOS, Android etc. A Few weeks back we reported about a Ransomware malware campaign which is targeting Android mobile users. Such Malware first try to trick users into downloading it and then demanding payment to restore user control of the device. This morning reports came out that cybercriminals have targeted a large number of users of Apple's iCloud connected devices with a sophisticated Ransomware in Australia. The owners of iPhone , Mac and iPads are finding their devices locked remotely through iCloud and a message originating in Apple's find my device service that states " Device hacked by Oleg Pliss ". One user wrote on Apple Support Forum, " I went to check my phone and there was a message on the screen (it's

After hacking PCs, Cyber criminals have now begun targeting Smartphones with a special piece of malicious software that locks up the devices until the victims pay a ransom to get the keys to unlock the phone, called Ransomware .  Ransomware typically targets users' personal computers and has become a profitable way for cyber criminals to earn money. To deliver the Ransomware malwares to the mobile devices, cyber criminals have started creating malicious software programs that masquerade as antivirus apps or other play store apps, but instead of protecting your smart devices, they lock up your Smartphone until you pay a ransom to unlock it. RANSOMWARE - POLICE &  CRYPTOLOCKER As we reported earlier in news updates, security researchers disclosed various Police ransomware targeting users' personal computers. The ransomware software once installed, cyber criminals attempts to lock the victim's computer hard disk and files from a remote location. Usually