how to fight crypto locker on a large environment

Not only did the C&C server issue instructions to send out a standard email, but it also generated fake domain names.

The mailing campaign for the CryptoLocker ransomware was a secondary task for the botnet. The primary purpose of Gameover ZeuS was banking fraud. This reduced the traffic traveling in and out of the server and made the C&C harder to trace. The system used a Peer-to-Peer architecture for communication with the C&C server. It included more than 1 million zombie computers.

The Gameover ZeuS botnet was created and controlled by Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, a Russian hacker. Spam filters on most email systems divert emails from one IP address in bulk by sending those large mailouts from lots of different locations, the botnet ducks that block. They are also used for spam email campaigns. Typically, these legions of computers are used in DDoS attacks, where many computers simultaneously make a connection request to a Web server, overwhelming it. So, hackers invented botnets in which each computer just attacks a target once. Defense mechanisms in cybersecurity software can read the IP address of an attacker and block it. Some botnets control hundreds of thousands of private computers, and other control IoT devices, such as security cameras. The purpose of a botnet is to spread a task between many computers. In most cases, those companies don’t even realize that their devices are working for other people. The computers in the botnet are called “ zombies.” They aren’t entirely controlled by the hackers and continue to operate as usual.

The active mechanism on the captured computer can open a connection and scan the remote server for instructions – that host is called the “ command and control” (C&C) server. During its period of operation, it attacked about 500,000 computers.Ī botnet is a group of infected computers controlled from a central server over the Internet. CryptoLocker was first spread on September 5, 2013, and it was shut down in May 2014.

How to fight crypto locker on a large environment