CryptoLocker Ransomware Now Spreading Through Removable Drives

During the past few months, advancements in CryptoLocker put ransomware on the public's radar in a major way.

But according to researchers at Trend Micro, enhancements in the world of ransomware have not stopped as the year as 2013 has come to a close.

According to the company, a piece of ransomware they believe is a variant of CryptoLocker has the ability to now spread through removable drives. This update is significant because it has not been seen in other variants and the added propagation routines means the malware can easily spread, according to Trend Micro.

"Aside from its propagation technique, the new malware bears numerous differences from known CryptoLocker variants," blogged Abigail Pichel of Trend Micro. "Rather than relying on a downloader malware—often UPATRE— to infect systems, this malware pretends to be an activator for various software such as Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing sites. Uploading the malware in P2P sites allows bad guys to easily infect systems without the need to create (and send) spammed messages."
 
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