A new ransomware variant is in the wild and is threatening to harass employees and business partners if a ransom payment is denied.
Dubbed as Yanluowang ransomware and discovered by security researchers from Broadcom Threat Hunting Team, the new file encrypting malware was found threatening the victims of launching DDoS attacks along with the usual data steal and encryption threat.
Although the Yanluowang Ransomware Group hasn’t hit its victim on a success note, it has provided researchers an insight that the malware spreading gangs have switched their business ethics to make money at any cost.
Technically, like all other ransomware gangs, the Yanluowang malware infects a database and drops ransom note. However, the gangs make a leap further by warning victims not to contact the police, FBI or the security company for mitigation or negotiations.
Instead, it offers the victim a flat pay fee of ransom to pay in victual currency. And if the victim doesn’t respond, then they send threatening emails of defaming their presence in business by informing their clients and partners about the attack and then launching a denial of service attack on their IT infrastructure that will disrupt the operations of the company forever.
As of now, it is hard to judge on how genuine is their threat and whether they stick to their demands after the law enforcement is contacted.
However, it illustrates how the ransomware spreading gangs are growing and are turning desperate to make money.
