There is a new piece of ransomware / crimeware that is being beta-tested in Europe currently to great success. Reports initially surfaced a few days ago at the German Anti-Botnet Advisory Centre of the new piece of nasty-ware, Chimera.
Chimera combines a ransomware infection with extortion, trying to make organizations pay even when they have good backups. This cyber-mafia sends spear-phishing attacks to specific employees with job offers or business proposals with a link to a malicious payload hosted on dropbox.
It starts as a “normal” ransomware infection, encrypts both local and network files and throws up a ransom note for 2.5 Bitcoin, which at the current Bitcoin rate of 353 dollars, is almost a thousand dollars. But the note shows that Chimera’s evil creators take things to a new low. In it, they claim that if they are not paid, they will publish the files on the Internet.
It’s not clear just yet if the ransomware program does indeed siphon off the files before or after encrypting them. But the threat itself could be enough to make organizations who do have backups into paying, because key files that have left the building illegally could constitute a very expensive data breach and bring along with it a litany of highly unpleasant consequences.
In the first six months of 2015, the number of ransomware attacks equaled the total number in all of 2014. This is big business for the criminal masterminds behind the scenes! These types of attacks and the defense thereof are critically important to businesses of all sizes.
Defending your organization at the perimeter isn’t enough any longer! Security must be integral to business systems, processes, and people! Learn how you can prevent such an attack and protect your organization by reviewing your situation and circumstances with one of our qualified engineers.
Corporate Information Technologies 704.815.7050
