Ransomware in Windows and Android Platforms
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Ransomware in Windows and Android Platforms Abdulrahman Alzahrani, Ali Alshehri, Hani Alshahrani, Huirong Fu Department of Computer Science and Engineering Oakland University Rochester, Michigan 48309 Email: faalzahrani, aaalshehri, hmalshahrani, [email protected] Abstract—Malware proliferation and sophistication have Ransomware exhibits behavioral differences if compared to drastically increased and evolved continuously. Recent traditional malware. For instance, most malware types aim indiscriminate ransomware victimizations have imposed critical to steal users’ data, like banking credentials, without raising needs of effective detection techniques to prevent damages. Therefore, ransomware has drawn attention among cyberspace sus-picions. In contrast, ransomware operations behave researchers. This paper contributes a comprehensive overview of differently since the attack notifies victims that their devices ransomware attacks and summarizes existing detection and have been infected [7]. prevention techniques in both Windows and Android platforms. This paper focuses on Windows and Android, the plat-forms Moreover, it highlights the strengths and shortcomings of those frequently targeted by ransomware attacks due to their techniques and provides a comparison between them. popularity in both desktop and mobile market-share. The rest Furthermore, it gives recommendations to users and system administrators. of this paper is organized as follows. Section II defines the concept of ransomware, and illustrates the functionality and Index Terms—Windows ransomware, Android ransomware, how it works. Then, a brief overview of the history of crypto-ransomware, locker-ransomware, ransomware families, ransomware cyberattacks is provided in Section III. Section IV countermeasures lists the most affected industry sectors by malware attacks around the world. Next, Sections V and VI summarize the I. INTRODUCTION notable observed behaviors of ransomware in the Windows Cyber-extorting malware is increasing and evolving con- and Android platforms, respectively. Section VII provides a tinuously. Throughout its growth, it has posed major threats to ransomware attack taxonomy, whereas Section VIII lists modern technologies with daunting prevention tasks. For existing countermeasures and prevention techniques. Aiming instance, computer systems’ security critically depends on the to educate the users, Section IX provides a set of policies and ability of anti-malware products that must be abreast of new recommendations. Finally, Section X concludes the paper. malware deployments. Authors of malware try to thwart anti- malware detection by implementing efforts that are more II. HOW RANSOMWARE WORKS significant [1]. Moreover, some malware has a powerful instru- There are two types of ransomware: locker-ransomware and ment for illegal commercial activities such as ransomware. crypto-ransomware [8]. In the first type, blockers prevent Ransomware is defined as a form of malware that de-ceives victims from accessing their devices. Locker-ransomware can users and infects their devices to limit or deny access. Hence, lock the whole screen of the device and demand payment. attackers demand payments from the victims for a promise to Typically, it masquerades as a notice from a local law en- restore their data, and affected devices do not permit access forcement agency reporting an illegal action done by the user until the ransom is paid [2]. Cyberattack writers have and indicating a spot-fine ransom. It does not encrypt any files diversified their efforts to make money by using well- or affect the data stored on the device. A notable example of established methods. Ransomware has constituted as one of locker-ransomware is WinLocker [9], [10]. the most dangerous cyberattacks facing both organizations By contrast, crypto-ransomware encrypts device services and and individual users with global losses now likely running to files, or even the entire database that the system interacts with. billions of dollars. This type of attack is the latest trend that Usually, once a file/folder is encrypted, it will be deleted from the cybercriminals use for monetization by extorting their victims device. Then a threatening message is displayed with a link to the [3]. Moreover, ransomware’s recent success has acceptable payment methods and instructions [11]. Encryption increased the appearance of new families in the last few keys can be generated locally by the ransomware on infected years [4]. It spreads rapidly through websites, infected machines, or remotely on a C&C server as il-lustrated in software and even email attachments. subsection V-C. Furthermore, accessing encrypted files is As many categories of malware, ransomware uses some restricted by withholding the decryption key [5]. A notable example techniques to evade detection systems in order to trick the of this type is the CryptoLocker family [12]. victims. It is able to encrypt files and establish secure con- After performing a successful infection, the malicious pro- nection with a Command and Control (C&C) server [5], [6]. gram notifies the user by displaying a ransom message, which Also, ransomware can exfiltrate users’ information to a third relies on Bitcoins currency for more confidentiality and party as well as perform multi-infection and process injection. Figure 1: Ransomware timeline over the history anonymity. This message contains instructions on how to Locker ransomware appeared as SMS, the master boot record pay the ransom in order to restore access to the encrypted (MBR), and fake FBI ransomware. The first locker ransomware data. Those persistent messages can be generated by came into existence in 2004 as Antivirus software. In 2005, a calling some dedicated API functions such as series of fake Antivirus ransomware variants appeared such as CreateDesktop(), which creates a new desktop and makes Spysherriff, Registry care, and Performance Optimizer [18]. The it a default for infected machines, locking out the users [13]. last two variants offered paid solutions for problems, which did not Additionally, ransomware cybercriminals do not deter large actually exist in the victim’s machine. Furthermore, they were due to their extortion campaigns. Hence, analysts discriminate deployed over the Internet until 2008. ransomware from wiping attacks. Ransomware attackers are Cybercriminals have implied more effective and sophisti- mostly on the benefit of an unlikely trusted relationship with cated Trojans using asymmetric RSA encryption schemes. A infected users. Attackers rely on the tenet that they will abide pair of keys are generated in asymmetric cryptosystem known by an implicit agreement with their victims to restore access to as public key and private key. The public key is embedded in their files once they make the payment. However, “skiddie” the payload of the ransomware to encrypt data on the victim’s cybercriminals trick their victims into paying the ransom and machine. On the other hand, the private key is kept secret and never return the victims’ files [14]. only known by the payload’s writer. Thus, encrypted data can be recovered at the writer-side, and malware analysts cannot III. HISTORY OF RANSOMWARE determine the private key from monitoring the operations of Crypto-based attacks are relatively old. The first known ransomware as used with symmetric schemes. Notable exam- form was written by Joseph Popp and released in 1989 ples of this type are Gpcode, MayArchive, TROJ.RANSOM.A, named AIDS, short for Aids Info Desk. It is also known as Archiveus, and Krotten [19]. PC Cyborg, which was the first crypto ransomware at-tack New families appeared and started spreading in 2006 seen in December 1989 [15]. This version replaced the such as Cryzip and Archiveus [20]. These variants sniff out AUUTOEXEC.BAT file, and counted how many times the for specific type of files to make them inaccessible. For machine was booted. Once it reached a certain time, it hid instance, Cryzip encrypts particular extensions, then moves directories and encrypted their names. Then it displayed a those encrypted files into a zipped folder. Whereas message claiming that a license of some software that the Archiveus moves files into a password protected folder. user used is expired, and asked the user to pay some In 2010, MBR ransomware variants made their first ap- amount in order to obtain a repair tool. This attack used a pearance under name Ransom.Boot.Seftad.a. Another type combination of a symmetric cryptography and an called bootlock.B came into existence in 2011. It replaces the initialization vector to encrypt files in a victim’s machine. original MBR with its code and locks the user’s machine then Hence, the key could be extracted from its code [11]. displays a ransom message at booting time. This type never Since then, AIDS has been present until now, but has signif- uses encryption. Moreover, the year of 2011 was the first year icant changes [16]. Adam L.Young and Moti Yung proposed of Fake FBI ransomware to come into existence by the the concept of using asymmetric key in 1996 [17]. At that time, appearance of Ransomlock family [21], [22]. Additionally, in cryptographic libraries were restricted by governments’ 2012 other families of the Fake FBI ransomware started legislation. They showed that the AIDS was ineffective by spreading such as ACCDFISA and Reveton. The ransom using one key. Therefore, they introduced public key cryptog- payments of these families were displayed in an official format raphy for such attacks.