Cry Ransomware

The Cry Ransomware is a threat that is used to take the victim's files hostage and then demand the payment of a ransom. The Cry Ransomware may be recognized because it changes the affected files' extension to 'the Cry', which many computer users may want to do when they realize that they no longer can access their files. The Cry Ransomware attack is not difficult to understand: the Cry Ransomware enters an affected computer through covert means, encrypts the victim's files, and then demands that the victim pays a ransom to get the decryption key needed to regain access to the files affected by the Cry Ransomware.

Unfortunately, it may not be attainable to recover files affected by the Cry Ransomware's encryption currently (although computer users may have some limited success with a Shadow Volume Explorer or another file recovery tool in certain isolated cases). This fact is what makes ransomware like the Cry Ransomware so threatening and pernicious. Even if the ransomware infection itself is removed, the victim's files will remain inaccessible and encrypted. This gives the con artists behind these attacks leverage to demand the payment of extraordinary sums in exchange for the means to decrypt the files, an approach that has proven to be quite effective and lucrative, in particular if the con artists are lucky enough to encrypt a valuable file or reach a server or device associated with a business. Prevention is the key to ensuring that attacks like the Cry Ransomware don't continue to proliferate, especially the establishment of robust backup methods that may remove this leverage from the con artists' hands.

How the Cry Ransomware may Attack Your Computer

The most common delivery method associated with the Cry Ransomware is the use of corrupted email spam attachments. These types of attachments, used to deliver threats like the Cry Ransomware, may be linked to a social engineering component that will try to convince the victim that the email attachment is a receipt or invoice, a shipping statement, a plane ticket or another harmless file. As soon as the victim downloads and executes the attached file, the Cry Ransomware runs on the victim's computer and begins encrypting the victim's files using a strong encryption method. The Cry Ransomware searches for files that match a list of file extensions in its attack as well as encrypting files in certain directories only. The purpose of this type of attack is to encrypt files that are important to the victim while allowing Windows to remain functional so that the Cry Ransomware may then demand the payment of the ransom. The following are example of files that may be encrypted by the Cry Ransomware and similar threats:

.odc, .odm, .odp, .ods, .odt, .docm, .docx, .doc, .odb, .mp4, sql, .7z, .m4a, .rar, .wma, .gdb, .tax, .pkpass, .bc6, .bc7, .avi, .wmv, .csv, .d3dbsp, .zip, .sie, .sum, .ibank, .t13, .t12, .qdf, .bkp, .qic, .bkf, .sidn, .sidd, .mddata, .itl, .itdb, .icxs, .hvpl, .hplg, .hkdb, .mdbackup, .syncdb, .gho, .cas, .svg, .map, .wmo, .itm, .sb, .fos, .mov, .vdf, .ztmp, .sis, .sid, .ncf, .menu, .layout, .dmp, .blob, .esm, .vcf, .vtf, .dazip, .fpk, .mlx, .kf, .iwd, .vpk, .tor, .psk, .rim, .w3x, .fsh, .ntl, .arch00, .lvl, .snx, .cfr, .ff, .vpp_pc, .lrf, .m2, .mcmeta, .vfs0, .mpqge, .kdb, .db0, .dba, .rofl, .hkx, .bar, .upk, .das, .iwi, .litemod, .asset, .forge, .ltx, .bsa, .apk, .re4, .sav, .lbf, .slm, .bik, .epk, .rgss3a, .pak, .big, wallet, .wotreplay, .xxx, .desc, .py, .m3u, .flv, .js, .css, .rb, .png, .jpeg, .txt, .p7c, .p7b, .p12, .pfx, .pem, .crt, .cer, .der, .x3f, .srw, .pef, .ptx, .r3d, .rw2, .rwl, .raw, .raf, .orf, .nrw, .mrwref, .mef, .erf, .kdc, .dcr, .cr2, .crw, .bay, .sr2, .srf, .arw, .3fr, .dng, .jpe, .jpg, .cdr, .indd, .ai, .eps, .pdf, .pdd, .psd, .dbf, .mdf, .wb2, .rtf, .wpd, .dxg, .xf, .dwg, .pst, .accdb, .mdb, .pptm, .pptx, .ppt, .xlk, .xlsb, .xlsm, .xlsx, .xls, .wps.

Malware analysts advise computer users against paying the Cry Ransomware ransom since there is no guarantee that the con artists will deliver on their promise. Furthermore, the payment of the Cry Ransomware's ransom allows these con artists to continue creating and developing these threats and attacking new victims every day.