This new ransomware is demanding large amounts of money and is so powerful it even delayed printing at the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
Ryuk is a new ransomware that has tried to differentiate itself from others by targeting organizations rather than individual consumers. They have reaped more than $4 million in less than a year from businesses locked out of crucial files and systems by the malware. The Ryuk hackers’ activities appear to be proof that even the basic hackers can turn and make millions from holding companies to ransom. Check out the link above to learn more.
Ryuk is suspected of being a single group linked to North Korean Intelligence and are behind the menacing ransomware that has spread across two or more prolific cybercriminal organizations. McAfee and Coveware released a report stating that Ryuk had extorted more than ten times the average malware ransom making it the costliest exploit of its nature. An average ransom payment was around $71,000 worth of bitcoin, while Ryuk attackers have an opening demand of $145,000 in the cryptocurrency. You either pay top dollar or your computer system would be wiped.
The researchers also found clues that pointed to Russia and former Soviet satellites of the attacks rather than North Korea. Russian languages were found in one of the encrypted files. There was also a cultural reference in one attack picked up by the researchers. The attackers told their victim “a la guerre comme a la guerre”. The French expression translates to “in war as in war” and was quoted several times by the Soviet revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin in his writings.
Despite the big ambitions and earnings, the Ryuk coders do not appear to be the most talented software engineers. The Malware is riddles with errors, so even when victims have paid the ransom, the too to decrypt files doesn’t work correctly and can fail to complete its task according to McAfee.