To protect against ransomware, you need a multi-layered approach that focuses on preventing attacks as well as mitigating the effect of successful crypto virus attack.
The cost of a crypto virus is much higher than the ransom paid to regain access to files – the loss of productivity and potential loss of data also adversely affect the bottom line. Once the crypto virus is launched, it encrypts a large number of files on a user's computer or on servers, hard drives and other storage devices throughout the organization. Crypto virus attacks are usually initiated when a user clicks a link in an email for a malicious website or opens a malicious attachment that appears to be an invoice, shipping notice, a fax report or a Word document. The decryption assistance website can be accessed here.A crypto virus is a type of ransomware virus like Locky or Cryptowall that encrypts files on a compromised computer and demands a ransom in return for a decryption code.Ĭrypto virus attacks are on the rise, with as many as 4,000 attacks each day and more than $1 billion in ransom paid each year, as estimated by the U.S. Unfortunately, the only avenue available for victims of the ransomware would be to pay the ransom or suffer having their files permanently encrypted. One of these deviations has been recently discovered to infect Synology NAS devices, however there is no indication of whether or not this decryption tool would be able to help victims of the new deviation.
#Crypto locker virus cost software
At that point the user must download a specific tool, enter the private key and the location of the encrypted file, and the tool will decrypt the encrypted file.Īlthough the software unlocks the original CryptoLocker malware, the researchers at FireEye point out that there are deviations and copycats of CryptoLocker that they would not be able to unlock. The site requires the user to upload any file that has been affected by the ransomware (they specify that they will not store or view the file), and the tool will email the user the relevant private key that can be used for decryption.
#Crypto locker virus cost free
Well, until a couple of days ago, at least.Ĭomputer security experts and researchers from the firms Fox-IT and FireEye have collaborated to reverse engineer the CryptoLocker software in a project they called "Operation Tovar." The collaboration between the two has led to the identification of many of the private keys used by CryptoLocker, and they have subsequently developed a free decryption assistance website and tool to help victims of the ransomware retrieve their data at no cost. If the victim didn't pay within a specified time, then the victim's files would remain encrypted forever. Ransomware would typically lock a victim's computer, demanding that they pay a fee in order to unlock the machine, however CryptoLocker was different.ĬryptoLocker would encrypt the files on the victim's storage using AES-256 bit encryption and demand about $300 in bitcoin in order to retrieve the decryption key. 2013 saw the introduction of an extremely annoying piece of ransomware called CryptoLocker that was fairly original in its implementation.