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Vid A fiendishly nasty strain of Windows malware that uses advanced encryption to lock up user files before demanding a ransom is doing the rounds.

CryptoLocker, which first surfaced early last month, leaves users in danger of losing important files forever unless they pay up. Typically the crooks relieve them of around $300 (£185).

The malware initially spreads through botnets or as an infected attachment of phishing messages. For example, CryptoLocker appeared in attachments to supposed customer complaint emails sent to firms last month, as an advisory note from security firm Emsisoft explains in greater depth.

More recently CryptoLocker has been spreading as a secondary infection through the infamous ZeuS botnet. If successful, CryptoLocker will encrypt users’ files using asymmetric encryption, featuring a public and private key pair. The public key is used to encrypt and verify data, while the private key is used for decryption.

The malware encrypts a wide variety of file types on compromised Windows PCs before displaying a ransom message demanding payment within by a fixed deadline, that typically falls within three or four days from the date of infection. Payment is demanded in the form of anonymous prepaid cash services such as MoneyPak, Ukash, cashU or through the Bitcoin digital currency.

Jonathan, a Reg reader who runs a remote IT support business, described the ransomware as the most destructive virus he’d come across in more than 10 years in the business.

“One of my clients has been infected with a new ransomware virus called CryptoLocker,” he told El Reg. “This is the most destructive virus that I have seen in 13 years because it encrypts .doc, .xls, .jpg, and .dwg files, even via network shares.”

“The virus appears to be spread in the UK via emails purporting to come from Companies House. There is no known decryption as yet, other than paying the $300 ransom,” he added.

Decryption is difficult, if not impossible, unless a victim has access to the private key stored on the cybercriminals’ server. Victims are told they need to hand over $300 to cybercrooks to obtain access to the private key within three or four days. Failure to act means the files are locked up in a vault that is fiendishly difficult to break into, perhaps meaning the scrambled files will be lost forever.

CryptoLocker is similar is some ways to other forms of ransomware, such as the Reveton police Trojan, but it’s far more sophisticated in its construction and aggressive in its demands.

The necessary decryption key is never left lying around on host machines. CryptoLocker phones home to a command-and-control server to obtain a public RSA key before it begins the task of silently encrypting files on compromised machines. The same command server also hosts the private key.

Malware that encrypts your data and tries to sell it back to you is not new. As net security firm Sophos points out, CryptLocker chiefly differs because it uses industry-standard cryptography for malign purposes.

“SophosLabs has received a large number of scrambled documents via the Sophos sample submission system,” Sophos explains in a blog post.

“These have come from people who are keenly hoping that there’s a flaw in the CryptoLocker encryption, and that we can help them get their files back,” adds the firm. “But as far as we can see, there’s no backdoor or shortcut: what the public key has scrambled, only the private key can unscramble.”

A video from SophosLab showing the malware in action can be found below. Victims receive little or no indication of problems on an infected machine while the malware is encrypting files in the background.

The may be some hope of recovering previous versions of encrypted files but it’s far better to avoid infection in the first place.

“In some cases, it may be possible to recover previous versions of the encrypted files using System Restore or other recovery software used to obtain “shadow copies” of files,” according to an advisory by anti-virus firm Malwarebytes.

More detailed advice on how some files might be recovered from infected machines can be found on borked PC advice website Bleeping Computer.

Another write-up of the threat can be found in a blog post by Trend Micro here.

Malwarebytes, Sophos (more info here) and other firms have added detection for strains of CryptoLocker to their antivirus products as well as blocking sites associated with the malware: factors that ought to provide some defence against infections taking hold.

However, antivirus technology can’t help in recovering encrypted files post-infection.

The appearance of CryptoLocker reinforces the need to regularly back up personal data files. And local backups alone may not be enough. In some cases CryptoLocker may even attempt to attack backups located on a network drive connected to an infected PC. For this reason, a belt-and-braces approach featuring non-local and cloud-based backups becomes a sensible option.

Security experts agree that regular data backups are the best safeguard against potential calamity in the face of the threat.

Fabio Assolini, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, writes in a Twitter update.”It’s not possible to recover the files encrypted by CryptoLocker. It’s not a good idea pay the ransom, backup is your friend.”

Christopher Boyd, a senior threat researcher at ThreatTrack Security, concurred that recovery from backups is the best option: “There are only two real options (neither of which are particularly great).

“You can remove the virus but lose your files (unless you have them backed up), or pay the bad guys with a credit card to get the unlock code (assuming there even is one) to recover the locked data, then – one would assume – attempt to get the money back. Due to the potential complexity of the infection, email exchanges or even remote support may not be an ideal way to try to fix the problem.”

A detailed discussion of the malware that took place around the time it first surfaced – in early September – can be found on a forum dedicated to kernel developers here. ®

CryptoLocker discussion video

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Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/18/cryptolocker_ransmware/