Fake Ransomware Infection Spooks Website Owners

[David H. Lipman]

Fake Ransomware Infection Spooks Website Owners

Quote

Starting this past Friday we have seen a number of websites showing a fake ransomware infection. Google search results for “FOR RESTORE SEND 0.1 BITCOIN” were sitting at 6 last week and increased to 291 at the time of writing this. Upon visiting their website webmasters have been met with an alarming message:

The warning indicated that the website was hit with a ransomware attack. The files were reported to be encrypted and the attackers demanded a ransom payment of 0.1 Bitcoin. While the price of Bitcoin is extremely volatile, at the time of writing this article that would clock in at a whopping $6,000+ USD

Past Cases of Website Ransomware

This would certainly not be our first time seeing websites impacted by ransomware. Typically ransomware affects endpoint devices, sometimes entire businesses and institutions. In fact, as I type this the entire provincial health care system of Newfoundland has been brought to its knees with thousands of delayed surgeries due to a crippling suspected ransomware attack.

Starting at the beginning of 2016 we saw some examples of website files themselves being encrypted by attackers with a ransom being demanded, which we wrote about on our blog at the time. This was pretty short lived, however. Attackers always go after the money to maximise their profits. We can only presume that targeting websites wasn’t terribly profitable and was best for them to go after endpoints, businesses and organisations. It’s also much more common for website owners to have backups handy, rendering the entire attack moot.

 

 

**  More in the Securi Blog post....