These days hackers are getting cranky with lots of campaigns of malware which use important political figures to attract the victims, according to the Cisco Talos (a threat intelligence firm, which noticed an uptick in ransomware with the depiction of the images of the important political figures.)
security researchers discovered ransomware, screen lockers, remote access Trojans (RAT), and many other malicious softwares, which features high profile politicians, like, Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin.
A screen locker with the theme of the U.S president, Trump, needed the victim to click on the button which is displayed in the application window of the lock screen. Malware characterizing the image of the U.S president, Donald Trump were used to freezing down computers of the unsuspicious boosters.
Malware founders are nothing, but getting political and are using images of the U.S president, Trump as a decoy of the victims. Other than political dispositions, the nature of these malware campaigns stills remains the same. Most of the malware campaigns always try to hale the victims into paying money, while the others try to engraft backdoors, for gaining sensitive information. Interestingly the researchers have also identified a huge amount of malevolent politically based software showing the potent political motivation of the writers.
Most of the ransomware stemmed from some fraudulent emails which appear from banks or some other contacts. A different example, actuated the users to click a “Build the wall” option. When this gets opened, the malware launches a lock on the screen and makes it appear, though the data is under a seize.
Donald Trump Screen of Death
The researchers have discovered different fake ransomware and screen lockers which portrayed important figures, like-Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
In one such case, the team noticed a theme locker, featuring Donald Trump, which presented- “Donald Trump screen of death”; which implied the president has locked the system. However, there was no form of monetization.
Another one, similar to this, shows that the files have been encrypted; and this ransomware provided rarely displayed any errors and mistakes, and did not encrypt the data, according to the researchers.
Politically featured malware campaigns
The presidential elections, which are going to be held in 2020, shows that the malware authors are going through a political inclination and targeting the individuals. However, the users must be aware of the political prejudices which arrives from these social media platforms, and such other malware campaigns.
Hillary Clinton dancing
Researchers have also viewed a funny political software depicting a humorous image of Hillary Clinton. When the ‘Funky moves’ option is clicked on, then the software would make the image of Hillary Clinton dance.
An odd themed not malicious software known as “Trump’s cybersecurity Firewall”, this software included various administrative functions.
Therefore, we must be aware of such malpractices which pose a threat to our cybersecurity.
