Hoop Ransomware
The Hoop Ransomware is another addition to the ever-growing family of the STOP/Djvu Ransomware variants. Despite the countless threats spawned from this family already, it appears that the effectiveness of STOP/Djvu is still attractive to cybercriminals. Indeed, the Hoop Ransomware is capable of impacting severely the computers it manages to infect. The threat initiates an encryption process using the AES-256 cryptographic algorithm, resulting in all targeted filetypes becoming inaccessible and unusable. Victims are then forced to pay a ransom to the hackers if they want to restore their data.
The behavior of the Hoop ransomware is largely consistent with that of the other STOP/Djvu variants. The main difference is the extension used by the threat to mark the encrypted files - '.hoop.' The ransom note is delivered as a text file named '_readme.txt.'
Ransom Note Overview
The threat states the exact sum that the hackers want to receive if they are to ever help their victims and that is $980. Just shy of a thousand dollars is not something that most individual users can part with freely and it seems that the hackers know this fact. The Hoop Ransomware operations have kept the usual observed in the other threats from the family, and reduce the price in half to $490 but only if the affected users initiate communication with the first 72 hours of the malware infection. The note also states that a single encrypted file can be sent to be decrypted for free and returned. Two email addresses - manager@mailtemp.ch and helpmanager@airmail.cc, are mentioned in the note as communication channels.
The full text of the message is:
'ATTENTION!
Don’t worry, you can return all your files!
All your files like pictures, databases, documents and other important are encrypted with strongest encryption and unique key.
The only method of recovering files is to purchase decrypt tool and unique key for you.
This software will decrypt all your encrypted files.
What guarantees you have?
You can send one of your encrypted file from your PC and we decrypt it for free.
But we can decrypt only 1 file for free. File must not contain valuable information.
You can get and look video overview decrypt tool:
https://we.tl/t-fhnNOAYC8Z
Price of private key and decrypt software is $980.
Discount 50% available if you contact us first 72 hours, that’s price for you is $490.
Please note that you’ll never restore your data without payment.
Check your e-mail "Spam" or "Junk" folder if you don’t get answer more than 6 hours.To get this software you need write on our e-mail:
manager@mailtemp.chReserve e-mail address to contact us:
helpmanager@airmail.cc.'
