The world of cybersecurity is full of surprises. From using torrents to download Game of Thrones to exploiting popular pornographic websites – notorious cybercriminals continue to come up with new ways to wreak havoc on users’ devices.
These days, a ransomware called RobinHood is spreading in the North Carolina area, where it has destroyed most of the PCs owned by the city. The FBI is currently investigating the issue along with local authorities.
What makes RobinHood Ransomware interesting are some surprising surprises from its creators. The .Onion ransomware payment page states that the developers care about user privacy.
“Your privacy is important to us, all your records, including your IP address and encryption keys, will be removed after your payment,” it says.
The page also states that the bitcoin used to pay the ransom is created for each victim, so there is no way to track it.
As Bleeping Computer reports, details about ransomware are currently scarce and there are no recorded samples of the same. However, according to @MalwareHunterTeam, the encrypted files are named something like Encrypted_%16 hex chars%.enc_robbinhood. The encryption used in this case is RSA-4096 which can be decrypted using private keys.
Another thing that the RobinHood Ransomware team claims to guarantee is honesty. The victim can upload up to 3 files with a maximum size of 10MB in total and decrypt them for free. This way, users can be sure that the developers are honest.
Their ransom note also states that the payment cost will continuously increase by $10,000 per day if payment is not made by the fourth day.
It goes without saying that users should not fall for such traps and should avoid paying the ransom as it encourages cyber criminals to spread their activities. There is also no guarantee that you will get your files back after paying the ransom. The best course of action in such cases is to inform the authorities and cybersecurity companies, who can properly investigate the matter and resolve it.
