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Does Petya make you WannaCry? Here are other malwares that reduced you to tears
Moneycontrol.com Malware, which includes various forms of harmful software, such as viruses and ransomware, wreaks a system by taking control of the machine, monitors actions and keystrokes, and silently sends confidential data from a computer or network to the … |
Crooks are stealing code from the purveyors of Petya ransomware and using it to extort money from innocent victims, stiffing the creators of the malware out of the cut they are supposed to get.
Rather than following the rules of licensing Petya, another criminal group is stealing and modifying the ransomware so they can use it without paying, according to the SecureList blog by researchers at Kaspersky Lab.
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The Petya ransomware now bundles a second file-encrypting program for cases where it cannot replace a computer’s master boot record to encrypt its file table.
Petya is an unusual ransomware threat that first popped up on security researchers’ radar in March. Instead of encrypting a user’s files directly, it encrypts the master file table (MFT) used by NTFS disk partitions to hold information about file names, sizes and location on the physical disk.
Before encrypting the MFT, Petya replaces the computer’s master boot record (MBR), which contains code that initiates the operating system’s bootloader. Petya replaces it with its own malicious code that displays the ransom note and leaves computers unable to boot.
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