Malware is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive users access to information or which unknowingly interferes with the user's computer security and privacy. By contrast, software that causes harm due to some deficiency is typically described as a software bug. Malware poses serious problems to individuals and businesses on the Internet. According to Symantec’s 2018 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), malware variants number has increased to 669,947,865 in 2017, which is twice as many malware variants as in 2016. Cybercrime, which includes malware attacks as well as other crimes committed by computer, was predicted to cost the world economy $6 trillion USD in 2021, and is increasing at a rate of 15% per year.
Ransomware is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or permanently block access to it unless a ransom is paid. While some simple ransomware may lock the system without damaging any files, more advanced malware uses a technique called cryptoviral extortion. It encrypts the victim's files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them. In a properly implemented cryptoviral extortion attack, recovering the files without the decryption key is an intractable problem – and difficult to trace digital currencies such as paysafecard or Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used for the ransoms, making tracing and prosecuting the perpetrators difficult.
The Internet has a long history of turbulent relations, major maliciously designed disruptions, and other conflicts. This is a list of known and documented Internet, Usenet, virtual community and World Wide Web related conflicts, and of conflicts that touch on both offline and online worlds with possibly wider reaching implications.
The Green Dot Corporation is an American financial technology and bank holding company headquartered in Austin. It is the world's largest prepaid debit card company by market capitalization. Green Dot is also a payments platform company and is the technology platform used by Apple Pay Cash, Uber, and Intuit. The company was founded in 1999 by Steve Streit as a prepaid debit card for teenagers to shop online. In 2001, the company pivoted to serving the "unbanked" and "underbanked" communities. In 2010, Green Dot Corporation went public with a valuation of $2 billion. Since its inception, Green Dot has acquired a number of companies in the mobile, financial, and tax industries including Loopt, AccountNow, AchieveCard, UniRush Financial Services, and Santa Barbara Tax Products Group.
Micro Bill Systems, also known as MicroBillSys, MBS and Platte Media, is an online collection service with offices in Leeds, England, considered to be malware. The company states that it is a professional billing company offering "software management solutions that can aid your business in reducing uncollectable payments." The company's best-known clients are online gambling and pornography sites offering three-day free trials of their subscription-based services. If users do not cancel during the trial period, the MBS software begins a repeating cycle of full-screen pop-up windows warning users that their account is overdue and demanding payment.
Zeus, ZeuS, or Zbot is a Trojan horse malware package that runs on versions of Microsoft Windows. While it can be used to carry out many malicious and criminal tasks, it is often used to steal banking information by man-in-the-browser keystroke logging and form grabbing. It is also used to install the CryptoLocker ransomware. Zeus is spread mainly through drive-by downloads and phishing schemes. First identified in July 2007 when it was used to steal information from the United States Department of Transportation, it became more widespread in March 2009. In June 2009 security company Prevx discovered that Zeus had compromised over 74,000 FTP accounts on websites of such companies as the Bank of America, NASA, Monster.com, ABC, Oracle, Play.com, Cisco, Amazon, and BusinessWeek. Similarly to Koobface, Zeus has also been used to trick victims of technical support scams into giving the scam artists money through pop-up messages that claim the user has a virus, when in reality they might have no viruses at all. The scammers may use programs such as Command prompt or Event viewer to make the user believe that their computer is infected.
Freedom Hosting is a defunct Tor specialist web hosting service that was established in 2008. At its height in August 2013, it was the largest Tor web host.
The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on darknets: overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communicate and conduct business anonymously without divulging identifying information, such as a user's location. The dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the Web not indexed by web search engines, although sometimes the term deep web is mistakenly used to refer specifically to the dark web.
The CryptoLocker ransomware attack was a cyberattack using the CryptoLocker ransomware that occurred from 5 September 2013 to late May 2014. The attack utilized a trojan that targeted computers running Microsoft Windows, and was believed to have first been posted to the Internet on 5 September 2013. It propagated via infected email attachments, and via an existing Gameover ZeuS botnet. When activated, the malware encrypted certain types of files stored on local and mounted network drives using RSA public-key cryptography, with the private key stored only on the malware's control servers. The malware then displayed a message which offered to decrypt the data if a payment was made by a stated deadline, and it threatened to delete the private key if the deadline passes. If the deadline was not met, the malware offered to decrypt data via an online service provided by the malware's operators, for a significantly higher price in bitcoin. There was no guarantee that payment would release the encrypted content.
A technical support scam, or tech support scam, is a type of fraud in which a scammer claims to offer a legitimate technical support service. Victims contact scammers in a variety of ways, often through fake pop-ups resembling error messages or via fake "help lines" advertised on websites owned by the scammers. Technical support scammers use social engineering and a variety of confidence tricks to persuade their victim of the presence of problems on their computer or mobile device, such as a malware infection, when there are no issues with the victim's device. The scammer will then persuade the victim to pay to fix the fictitious "problems" that they claim to have found. Payment is made to the scammer through ways which are hard to trace and have fewer consumer protections in place which could allow the victim to claim their money back, usually through gift cards.
Operation Torpedo was a 2011 operation in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) compromised three different hidden services hosting child pornography, which would then target anyone who happened to access them using a network investigative technique (NIT).
The WannaCry ransomware attack was a worldwide cyberattack in May 2017 by the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm, which targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. It propagated through EternalBlue, an exploit developed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for older Windows systems. EternalBlue was stolen and leaked by a group called The Shadow Brokers a month prior to the attack. While Microsoft had released patches previously to close the exploit, much of WannaCry's spread was from organizations that had not applied these, or were using older Windows systems that were past their end-of-life. These patches were imperative to organizations' cyber security but many were not implemented due to ignorance of their importance. Some have claimed a need for 24/7 operation, aversion to risking having formerly working applications breaking because of patch changes, lack of personnel or time to install them, or other reasons.
Marcus Hutchins, also known online as MalwareTech, is a British computer security researcher known for temporarily stopping the WannaCry ransomware attack. He is employed by cybersecurity firm Kryptos Logic. Hutchins is from Ilfracombe in Devon.
Petya is a family of encrypting malware that was first discovered in 2016. The malware targets Microsoft Windows–based systems, infecting the master boot record to execute a payload that encrypts a hard drive's file system table and prevents Windows from booting. It subsequently demands that the user make a payment in Bitcoin in order to regain access to the system.
Hitler-Ransomware, or Hitler-Ransonware [sic], is a form of ransomware created in 2016 originating in Germany. It requests payment within one hour; otherwise, it will delete files from the infected computer.
Jigsaw is a form of encrypting ransomware malware created in 2016. It was initially titled "BitcoinBlackmailer" but later came to be known as Jigsaw due to featuring an image of Billy the Puppet from the Saw film franchise. The malware encrypts computer files and gradually deletes them unless a ransom is paid to decrypt the files.
REvil was a Russia-based or Russian-speaking private ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation. After an attack, REvil would threaten to publish the information on their page Happy Blog unless the ransom was received. In a high profile case, REvil attacked a supplier of the tech giant Apple and stole confidential schematics of their upcoming products. In January 2022, the Russian Federal Security Service said they had dismantled REvil and charged several of its members.
Ryuk is a type of ransomware known for targeting large, public-entity Microsoft Windows cybersystems. It typically encrypts data on an infected system, rendering the data inaccessible until a ransom is paid in untraceable bitcoin. Ryuk is believed to be used by two or more criminal groups, most likely Russian, who target organizations rather than individual consumers.
