Malware News Criminals Peddling Affordable AlphaLocker Ransomware

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Alkajak

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It’s rare a week goes by now without a new strain of ransomware making headlines. Researchers described one of the latest earlier this week, a relatively affordable ransomware-as-a-service named AlphaLocker.

One of the main selling points to AlphaLocker is how cheap it is; the ransomware can be purchased directly from the author for as little as $65 USD, via Bitcoin, researchers claim. With proof of purchase, attackers get a copy of the actual ransomware, the master decryptor binary, and their own administrative panel, according to Cylance, which carried out a full review of the ransomware on Wednesday.

Advertising for AlphaLocker boasts the ransomware “encrypts all drives connected to the PC,” and “continues to encrypt files when the computer is turned off” but it’s the malware’s inexpensiveness that frightens Jim Walter, a researcher with the firm.

“The lower price point allows ‘less-skilled’ ne’er–do–wells to possess and control (and profit from) ransomware, with little to no coding and zero ramp-up time,” he warned.

Like most strains of ransomware, once it springs into action, AlphaLocker scours systems for a bevy of file types – editable by the ransomware’s buyer – and has a command and control server generate a random AES key to encrypt each of them.

As soon as the files have been encrypted, victims are given a text file and told to pay the ransomware by following a link and paying 0.35 Bitcoin.

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Full Article: Criminals Peddling Affordable AlphaLocker Ransomware
 

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