SamSam ransomware (also known as Samas, SamSamCrypt, and MSIL) is a quickly evolving type of malware that targets hospitals, municipalities, and other large organizations. After installing malicious software through compromised servers, the hackers encrypt network files, making them unusable, and...
A ransomware attack on the city of Atlanta on Mar. 22 has left officials scrambling to provide services to residents. Many critical services, like public-safety and wastewater treatment, have been unaffected. Meanwhile, other systems have ground to a halt or...
A report from a leading research firm found a startling statistic for 2017: only half of ransomware victims who paid a ransom were able to successfully decrypt their files. These findings and others in the report offer even more incentive...
SamSam ransomware has infected thousands of computers at the Colorado Department of Transportation. Over 2,000 employee computers were shut down to stop the spread of the malware after it was discovered on Feb. 21, and systems are still not back...
Ransomware became a household name in 2016. As hackers extorted ransoms from hospitals, universities, and other groups in return for files, the public became aware of how vulnerable devices are in this connected age. Even with the awareness of this...
A computer security company determined that the dark-web ransomware market has grown by 2,500 percent from 2016 to 2017. The company, Carbon Black, credits that expansion to the relative anonymity of Bitcoin and Tor as well as the lucrative return-on-investment...
Every week, new strains of ransomware infect computers or are spotted by security researchers while still in development. Most of them are small-scale operations that attract little attention. Every once in a while, a new malware will make headlines based...
Locky ransomware first appeared in February 2016 using a simple but ingenious social engineering method. The distributors sent thousands of emails around the world with an infected Microsoft Word document that appeared as gibberish when opened. The message, “Enable macro...
At Datarecovery.com, we frequently recover lost passwords for everything from Word documents and RAR files to encrypted Linux volumes (LUKS encryption) and Bitcoin wallets. Our customers often ask about our methods; do we simply try every possible password, or is...
A new strain of ransomware targets websites created through WordPress. The malware encrypts a web server’s files making them inaccessible. Experts have named the malicious software “EV” because it appends files with “.ev” after encrypting them. The ransomware is...