Ransomware infections (1) have been around for years now, but their dominance in the cyber-world has only become evident in 2017. There had been local attacks, like infections that focused on people from Ukraine (2), or the ones that broke out in the worldwide level (3). Nevertheless, Cerber crypto-virus remains to be one of the most frightening ransomware threats of all time, and new samples continue to pop out.

In August, an elaborate sample of Cerber malware has been detected to haunt people with a new tactic: to infect computer devices and steal users’ bitcoin wallet credentials.(4) As soon as these accounts are accessed and wiped clean, there is no way of restoring the wallet because hackers delete it.

This sample from ransomware category has matured with many developments. To find out more about the way this infection functions, which files it encrypts and so on, we recommend you to read an article from 2-viruses.com. This analysis will provide with all of the essential details that need to be learned about Cerber crypto-virus.

There had been many stages of activity for Cerber computer infection. First of all it debuted as a rather unusual and well-designed ransomware. After some time, it was found available on underground forums and its most popular method for distribution appears to be exploit kits. Shockingly, according to the analysis by Google, hackers behind Cerber have managed to obtain $6.9 million dollars as revenue (5). Sadly, these crooks are still unidentified.

This malware variant does not plan to leave the business of file-encoding anytime soon. As long as authors of these infections will successfully obtain money from these hoaxes, ransomware will never be defeated. According to the reports from victims of Cerber file-encoder, it is clear that people from all over the world are targeted, beginning from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Spain, Portugal, France and Denmark.

Of course, infected victims will certainly feel more comfortable if they will be able to read the content in their own native language. You can find instructions for removal and additional information about this infection in Spanish, Portuguese, French and Danish languages.

Please remember that paying for decryption of files only makes ransomware authors continue working on their projects and ruining lives of innocent online surfers. To make sure that you do not suffer from a similar fate, we advise you to always update your software and operating system; if you do this, many security gaps will be fixed. Also, back up your data in online storages as a precaution.

References:

1. What is ransomware? A guide to the global cyberattack’s scary method. Wired.com.
2. Hackers who targeted Ukraine clean out bitcoin ransom wallet. Theguardian.com.
3. ‘Petya’ ransomware attack strikes companies across Europe and US. Theguardian.com.
4. Now Cerber ransomware wants to steal your Bitcoin wallets and passwords too. Zdnet.com.
5. Google Study Quantifies Ransomware Profits. Threatpost.com.