Dr Ransomware

The Dr Ransomware is a file-locking Trojan that comes from the Dharma Ransomware family. The Dr Ransomware can block the files on your computer, such as documents, by encrypting them, and displays characteristic ransom notes in two formats. Users can back their work up for avoiding this extortion while using anti-malware services for removing the Dr Ransomware in safety.

Playing Unwitting Host to the Capture of Your Files

The Dharma Ransomware Ransomware-as-a-Service, although falling behind its competitor, the STOP Ransomware, is still an ongoing player in the threat landscape for 2020. As a series of Trojans basing their code on Crysis Ransomware's construction kit model, the family has a history of circulating through multiple strategies, including Exploit Kits and e-mail tactics and brute-force password-cracking. The Dr Ransomware is a new variant of this group, with its preferred means of installation speculative currently.

The Dr Ransomware executable is hiding as a fake part of Windows – 'winhost.exe,' similarly to its relatives, the 'satco@tutanota.com' Ransomware and the 0day0 Ransomware. Due to being less than a megabyte, it's highly portable through techniques such as e-mail attachment-embedded macro 'loaders.' The Trojan sets a Registry key for its system persistence before enacting its encryption routine, which blocks digital media, including Word documents, various picture formats, and other data.

Files that the Dr Ransomware encrypts are blocked from opening securely until the user decrypts them, which requires a compatible decryption service. The Trojan sells this solution through HTA pop-up and TXT messages that it places on the infected computer. Malware experts also conclude, without surprise, that the Dr Ransomware continues the tradition of removing the Shadow Volume Copies, which stops victims from retrieving their work through the Windows Restore Points.

Doctoring Away a Money-Hungry Infection

The Dr Ransomware has no stand-out features that differentiate it from similar Trojans from Dharma Ransomware's RaaS, such as April's Love$ Ransomware or March's GTF Ransomware. Nonetheless, its family's continuing hiring and circulation by third parties is indicative of the failure of victims to back their files up appropriately, as well as a note of its still-unbroken encryption security. Backing files up to detachable devices or ones with strong password security will remove any need for paying a ransom and buying a decryptor that may not work.

Workplace environments and emphatically enterprise-grade entities are at risk from brute-force attacks against RDP and similar remote admin features, as well as e-mail phishing lures. All Windows users should hesitate before enabling macros inside of documents or spreadsheets, which can convey drive-by-download attacks. They should update their software when patches are available, and scan their downloads as a matter of habit. Average users are at most risk from illegal downloads like some torrents, and Web browser threats like the RIG Exploit Kit.

Windows users can depend on the usual trustworthy anti-malware solutions for blocking infection efforts and uninstalling the Dr Ransomware.

The misnamed the Dr Ransomware is less of a doctor than a bandit and uses false names and ironic themes as part of its data-extorting campaign. However, the saving grace is that users with any degree of forethought will already have all the defenses that they need to stop the Dr Ransomware from collecting ransoms.