May 04, 2018
The latest variant of the GandCrab ransomware breaks infected Windows 7 systems, Fortinet warns.
Discovered at the end of last month, version 3 of the ransomware forces a system reboot, attempting to change the PC’s desktop wallpaper. Because of a coding bug, however, only Windows 10 and Windows 8 systems would fully load, while Windows 7 machines would hang at a point before the Windows Shell is completely loaded.
GandCrab spreads via spam emails, and Fortinet last week observed an uptick in messages distributing the ransomware. The emails carried version 2.1 of the malware and most of them (75%) targeted users in the United States, with those in the United Kingdom, Canada, Romania, and South Africa also impacted.
Over the past several days, the GandCrab operators switched to a new malware iteration, but kept most of the functionality intact. The main difference between the two versions is the attempt to change the desktop wallpaper, which only works on Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 systems.
“On Windows 7 however, for some reason, booting does not finish but instead gets stuck at a point before the Windows Shell is completely loaded. That means an infected user would not have the Windows interface to interact with, rendering the entire machine seemingly unusable,” Fortinet
explains.
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