It is normal for cybersecurity experts to discover strange things on the World Wide Web. If we particularly talk about the domain of cryptovirology, then a new strain is discovered every other day. Many times these cryptovirological strains have really odd and inexplicable bearings. For instance, a team of cyber malware hunters has recently discovered a cryptovirological strain named by the operators as ‘Barack Obama ’s Everlasting Blue Blackmail Virus’. Picture of the former president appears on the screen as soon as the ransomware completes its encryption activity.
Along with the picture of Obama, a body of text also appears on the screen containing the email ID of the attackers. The note, however, doesn’t mention the amount of money demanded by the operators for ransomware removal.
The Barack Obama Virus is not an amateur attempt
Even though the name and imagery of this ransomware give off the impression that it might be an act of some rooky cryptovirological developer; that is not the case. Security experts have come to that conclusion after assessing the activity of the strain. For instance, as soon as the strain infiltrates the device, it executes multiple commands to stop different security processes run by antivirus software applications.
Apart from that, the cryptovirological strain is particularly designed to only encrypt executable files. So, files with only ‘.exe’ extension get affected by this ransomware strain. The infiltration of this ransomware strain is so deep that even the executable files in Windows folder are not spared from its encryption activity. This feature of strain can also disrupt the regular functioning of the operating system.
It is still unclear whether the attackers have developed the decryption key for ransomware removal. On the other hand, security researchers are still examining the encryption algorithm of the ransomware. It will certainly take some time to come up with the effective ransomware removal measure for the given cryptovirological strain.
