In late October, Russian-speaking users began receiving malicious spam allegedly from law enforcement and government authorities, containing ransomware. ForkLog reported this, citing experts from Kaspersky Lab.<\/p>\n
The company recorded several thousand emails warning users about an uptick in hacker activity and offering them to download a ‘special update for security systems’ to protect devices from various online threats. After installing such a solution, the user would supposedly receive a code enabling ‘to detect and prevent a cyberattack’.<\/p>\n
In reality, by following the provided link, the user downloaded a ransomware program from the Trojan-Ransom.Python.Agent family. For restoring access to the data, the attackers demanded a ransom of 0.009 BTC.<\/p>\n
Kaspersky Lab specialists noted that the mailing was sent using a legitimate service, and the sender’s address resembled that of an official mailbox of one of the agencies.<\/p>\n
As reported by US company SonicWall, in July, amid a drop in Bitcoin’s price, the number of ransomware attacks substantially decreased<\/a>.<\/p>\n