It's Popcorn time
In recent times, cyber security has seen threats from hackers with malicious codes sent through malwares. They are created and spread over IoT devices by cyber criminals and data loopers. Among these malwares, Ransomwares get the top spot. These softwares have the capability to loot money from online bankers. Large enterprises and organisations are this software’s major target. Ransomwares work with their own principle like other malwares. They will inject the targeted computer with malicious codes and block access to its fi le system until the cyber criminal gets paid by the user. The advantage of these malwares is their highly-defi ned AES security system. ‘Popcorn Time’ is the latest threat among Ransomwares. It was designed and developed by Popcorn Time Developers. They entered the market only a few weeks ago.
But don’t take them lightly as Popcorn Time abruptly infects the users’ system and demands to pay the ransom for the decrypted system keys. What makes this Ransomware hard to fi ght? Popcorn Time encrypts the user’s files with AES-256 encryption method. It makes it hard to decrypt the keys with other unlocking software. After encryption, the fi les stored in the infected computer will get locked with ‘.fi
lock’ or ‘.kok’ extensions. To unlock this, Popcorn Time will ask the user to either buy a decrypt key or share their software two other users and infect their computers to get unlocked. The worst thing to note is the duration and limitation for unlocking. It is estimated that around 1 Bitcoin - which is equal to $ 750 dollars (around Rs 50,000) - is demanded by the cyber-kidnappers. If the user fails to pay the ransom or wrongly enters the key more than four times, the fi les encrypted by Popcorn Time get deleted automatically.
