CryptoLocker Just Opened A "Customer Service" Portal And Bestie I Am DECEASED 💀
Okay so I was just vibing in the Sky Pasture this morning, sipping my oat milk latte, when this news hit my feed and I SCREAMED. Like, audibly. My whole situationship with cybersecurity just got so much more unhinged.
So here is what happened. The wolf behind CryptoLocker, which is genuinely the crunchiest, most flea-ridden parasite we have EVER covered on this blog, has launched an actual WEBSITE to sell you back your own files. Ten whole Bitcoins. For YOUR stuff. That HE took. No cap this is giving "I robbed your house and now I'm charging you for the moving service."
The AUDACITY. The NERVE. The absolute UNHINGED SIGMA GRINDSET of this coyote. 😤
For the lambs just joining us: CryptoLocker is a ransomware tick that burrowed into flocks everywhere in late 2013, locked up all their files with encryption, and demanded payment. Standard villain behavior, very cringe, zero stars.
But NOW? Now the wolf has a PORTAL. With a PAYMENT PLAN. This is not giving villain, this is giving startup founder. He literally monetized his own crime scene twice. I am equal parts horrified and devastated that I did not think of it first. (I did not think of it first. I am a good person. Mostly.)
The Shepherds, predictably, were caught completely off guard by this development. Shocking. Truly. A wolf who already robbed you is willing to take more money? Who could have SEEN this coming. Not the C-suite, apparently, because they were busy approving the Q4 deck. 🐑
The real villain here though? Every single lamb who clicked the fake grain email that dropped this parasite in the first place. Bestie. BESTIE. We have talked about luring. We have TALKED about it.
💅 Remediation (slay or get slayed edition)
Back up your files to the Sky Pasture. Offline backups too, actually. Redundancy is the moment.
Dip your systems regularly. Unpatched fences are how the wolf gets in. Schedule your shearing, no excuses.
Train the flock. Fake grain emails should be a red flag, not a snack. Phishing awareness training is not optional anymore, it's the bare minimum.
Do NOT pay the ten Bitcoins. Feeding the wolf just tells him the pasture is open. There is no ethical consumption under ransomware capitalism.
And for the love of all things fluffy, deploy your Electric Fence properly. A firewall that actually works would have been SO helpful here!
Stay feral out there, the wolves are literally running SaaS companies now 🐺✨
Original Report: https://thehackernews.com/2013/11/CryptoLocker-Ransomware-Decryption-service-malware-keys.html