The developers of CryptXXX and Cerber viruses continue making thousands of dollars profit

When these viruses struck the Internet community for the first time, no one had the slightest suspicion to what enormous scale the threats would grow. At times, it seems almost that IT professionals almost catch up to the hackers by releasing the decryption tools for these ransomware masterpieces. However, their expectations are blown away as the crooks strike again with more powerful updated viruses. Recently, it has been reported that CryptXXX virus has managed to collect already over $45,000, while Cerber decided to aim big – it attacked Microsoft company itself. So why do these viruses still keep causing shivers for the Internet community?

The cyber war between the authors of CryptXXX and the “good guys” – IT professionals – resembles the play of cat and mouse. The ransomware saw the daylight in April. It looked like an ordinary virus which encoded personal data and then presented the victim a choice – pay the ransom or bid farewell to the data. Luckily, after a week Kaspersky specialists gave hope to the victims by releasing a free decryptor. Nonetheless, the authors seemed to learn their lessons quick as they shortly introduced another improved version of CryptXXX virus. Now IT experts are trying to come up with a decryption tool for CryptXXX 3.0. The success of this threat also lies in its distribution techniques. It mainly disperses via spam attachments, while previously it successfully attacked users with the help of exploit kits, such as Angler.

The developers of CryptXXX and Cerber viruses continue making thousands of dollars profit

Speaking of Cerber ransomware, this virus started out as a peculiar malware which carefully chose what regions to target. Within short while, it has evolved to the virus which is able to address its victims literally. It is spotted spreading as an audio file. Recently, the updated edition of Cerber has become even more aggressive by connecting users to a botnet, i.e., a network of machines which automatically send out the infection to other computers. Enjoying the success of the virus, the hackers recently decided to attack Microsoft Office 365 users. The confrontation to cease the attack took 5 hours for the cyber security specialists. Moreover, 57 companies using this service reported receiving at least one copy of the destructive virus.

Regarding the intense situation in the IT field, you should at least do one thing regularly – improve your cyber security. To do that, you can combine an anti-virus and malware removal software. In addition, sorting out the websites you are visiting might be of help as well.

About the author
Julie Splinters
Julie Splinters - Anti-malware specialist

Julie Splinters is the News Editor of 2-spyware. Her bachelor was English Philology.

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