14 DAY TRIAL // The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA), dubbed the “British FBI,” is warning the public – particularly small and medium businesses – regarding spam campaigns designed to distribute the CryptoLocker ransomware onto the computers of unsuspecting users.
According to the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU), the malicious emails purport to come from banks and other financial institutions. Tens of millions of Internet users from the UK are already said to have received the fake notifications.
The file that’s attached to these emails is not a voicemail, a fax, or an invoice. Instead, it’s a piece of malware that ultimately downloads CryptoLocker, a threat that encrypts certain types of files and keeps them that way until victims agree to pay up.
Unfortunately, so far, there’s no way of getting your files back unless you pay the ransom.
However, the NCA advises users not to pay up since there’s no guarantee that the cybercriminals will respect their end of the deal.
Instead, users are recommended to protect themselves against such threats by avoiding to click on links or attachments contained in suspicious emails. Also, if you make regular backups of your most important files, you can easily restore them after removing the infection.
Authorities advise victims to file a report with Action Fraud in case their computers are infected with CryptoLocker.
“The NCA are actively pursuing organised crime groups committing this type of crime. We are working in cooperation with industry and international partners to identify and bring to justice those responsible and reduce the risk to the public,” Deputy Head of the NCCU Lee Miles stated.
It’s worth noting that authorities in the US have also issued warnings about CryptoLocker. US-CERT says the malicious emails sent to internauts in the US purport to come from companies such as FedEx and UPS.