After an apparent lull, Locky ransomware is back to strike, it's one of the most dangerous cyber attacks of all 2017
A new attack by the notorious Locky ransomware has crippled 23 million devices in the United States alone. It is one of the largest cyber attacks recorded in 2017. The malware known as Locky has grown 600% over the number of victims it reached in 2016 and doesn't seem to want to stop.
This attack, as some cybersecurity researchers have pointed out, came after an apparent lull for ransomware. Throughout the first part of 2017, in fact, Locky left the scene to another malware known as Cerber. This is a technique often used by cyber criminals. They work in the shadows to enhance an already known threat and distract the attention of researchers with other attacks of a similar type. The method of spreading Locky ransomware is always the same. Hackers use malicious emails with malicious links and attachments to lock a computer's files.
How Locky works
The emails used to infect victims are quite vague. They disguise themselves as fake work messages and use the accounts of other employees or the company itself to convince the victim to open a document, print a file or review a photo. All messages have a ZIP attachment that contains a Visual Basic Script (VBS) file, which is used to infect the PC. The ransom demanded at the moment by Locky is $2,150, about 1,800 at the current exchange rate.
How to defend yourself
Unfortunately, there are a number of techniques to defend yourself against such hacker attacks. First, we must remember to constantly update the antivirus and all the software we use on the computer, including the operating system. Secondly, we must never trust incoming attachments in emails. If a superior or a colleague sends us a document as an attachment but the text of the email seems suspicious, we should ask for clarification before downloading it. Last but not least, it is necessary to perform constant backups. This is the only way not to pay the ransom to recover our data.