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The afflicted PC wouldn’t function until
the ransom was paid and the malware’s
actions were reversed. Since then, numerous
enhancements to this type of scheme have
been made, especially in the area of stronger
file encryption.
Now it’s virtually impossible for victims to
decrypt their own files. Another type of
ransomware scheme, dubbed ‘scareware’,
displayed a warning on a user’s computer
that the device was infected with malware
that could be removed immediately by
purchasing what turned out to be fake
antivirus software.
The scareware message appeared
repeatedly, prompting many victims to
purchase the ‘antivirus software’ just to
get rid of the warning message. The term
‘ransomware’ broadly describes a wide
range of malicious software programs,
including CryptoLocker, Locky, CryptoWall,
KeyRanger, SamSam, TeslaCrypt,
TorrentLocker and others.
Various strains of these major applications
appear and continue to evolve in order to
avoid detection. In fact, researchers saw more
than 4 million samples of ransomware in the
second quarter of 2015, including 1.2 million
that were new. That compares to fewer than
1.5 million total samples in the third quarter of
2013, when fewer than 400,000 were new. n
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