Troj/Ransom-A Displays Pornographic Images and Asks for A Ransom

Virus writers are constantly improving their abilities, and since the latest thing in malicious creations is to extort money from users, their creations seem to have refocused on that purpose.

Experts at SophosLabs have warned users about a Trojan horse that prevents victims from accessing their computer data and asks for ransom to be paid via Western Union.

Dubbed Troj/Ransom-A, this Trojan threatens to delete one file belonging to the innocent user every 30 minutes, until the $10.99 ransom demand is fulfilled. Still, before making this threat, the malicious code makes sure to show some pornographic images.

After the images, the Trojan shows the following message:

�listen up muthafucka
is this computer valuable. it better not be. is this a business computer. it better not be. do you keep important company records or files on this computer. you'd better hope not. because there are files scattered all over it tucked away in invisible hidden folders undetectable by antivirus sofware the only way to remove them and this message is by a CIDN number"

The Sophos experts are concerned that this type of malicious codes will only increase in number, which will obviously lead to more complex malware.

"This Trojan horse is designed to take your data hostage, and tries to scare users into paying up quickly by threatening to wipe files one-by-one. Our concern is that this may be the beginning of a growing trend of malware designed to extort money from innocent users," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

Image credit: SophosLabs