The first thing Mark Wilson noticed was a drag on the computer system that he and five others used at his company.
“Everything was just crawling,” said Wilson, president and co-owner of Apex Cary Insurance in Apex, N.C.
Wilson called Raleigh, N.C.-based Petronella Technology Group, which asked if he noticed anything like a ransom note.
Sure enough, Wilson found a pop-up on one of the monitors asking for $300 in exchange for a key that would unscramble all of the business’s files that it had encrypted.
Craig Petronella’s firm helps when people or businesses are hit with a computer virus. (Chris Seward/Raleigh News Observer/MCT)
Wilson’s company had been hit by ransomware, which is a form of malware – or malicious software – that infects a computer and its connected systems, and then demands a payment. The attackers are likely criminal organizations based in Russia and Eastern Europe.
The company’s digital files had been scrambled by CryptoLocker, a version of ransomware that first appeared in September. It has since infected about 25 million systems across the globe, about 70 percent of which are in the U.S., according to Keith Jarvis, senior security researcher with the Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit.
CryptoLocker appears to be spreading through emails that lure victims into opening them, according to a November alert issues by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team.
The CryptoLocker infections offer a glimpse into criminal organizations that work together, using the Internet to gain personal information in order to sell it or use it to steal from bank accounts.
Ransomware has been around for years, but untraceable and unregulated virtual currencies have fueled increasing attacks, according to a McAfee Labs report on 2014 threat predictions.
Defense options, the report and experts said, include not opening suspicious emails and keeping anti-virus software and patches current. An effective computer file backup structure will also minimize risk.
Dell researchers, Jarvis said, have observed the CryptoLocker being distributed through cyber criminals working together to mine personal data using different malware, such as botnets – a network of infected machines that communicate with controlling cyber criminals.
Gameover Zeus, one of the most notorious and sophisticated botnets involved in online banking fraud, is distributed by the Cutwail spam botnet, which used email attachments to lure users. After an attachment has been opened, Upatre malware downloads and then executes Gameover Zeus, which brings in other malware families, including CryptoLocker.
Dell SecureWorks has seen variants of Zeus go after small and medium businesses because they are usually less secure, said Elizabeth Clarke, a spokesperson for Dell SecureWorks.
CryptoLocker victims should take an inventory of their files and have off-site backups available to recover infected data. It’s easy to remove CryptoLocker, Jarvis said, but the machine could still be hosting Gameover Zeus and other malware.
Craig Petronella, president of Petronella Technology Group, has seen three small businesses hit with the CryptoLocker since October, and each company has spent about $300 to save their data.
Petronella learned about CryptoLocker after Jerry Hall, who owns Total Systems Heating Cooling in Spring Lake with his wife, Brenda, shared his concerns about a pop-up on his computer.
Petronella got into the Hall’s computer system and found instructions for making a payment. The pop-up also gave a deadline in which CryptoLocker would permanently encrypt all of the Hall’s files.
“It’s a ticking timer,” Petronella said. “And it’s counting down.”