Jessica Davis reports:
In February, Locky was found in the wild, wreaking havoc on networks. And despite the drop in the frequency of ransomware attacks in recent months and increase of decryption tools for strains like Crysis, Locky is upping the ante on its attack method.
The latest ransomware downloader uses the AESIR-file extension. It masks the virus as an email from valid companies and a subject line designed to encourage the reader to both read the email and open the zip attachment, according to Derek Knight of UK-company My Online Security.
More specifically, Locky hackers disguise the virus as a complaint from an internet service provider that SPAM is coming from the user’s computer.
Read more on Healthcare Finance. Teach/remind your employees not to fall for these tricks. And make sure you have a current backup that you test periodically in case your data become locked up, because there may be no way to currently decrypt the version of Locky that hits you.