New Zero-day ShurL0ckr Ransomware Targets Cloud Applications

 

A new strain of malicious file-encoder virus named ShurL0ckr Ransomware was detected on cloud services of Microsoft and Google. Cyber security analysts have reported about a new zero-day ransomware which evades the detection of Microsoft Office 365 and Google Drive built-in virus protection. Recently, a security firm have performed a quick scan of cloud networks like MS Office 365 and Google Drive, and they found that plenty of files that were hosted on these cloud networks infected with nasty viruses. Nowadays, most of the companies and global organizations rely on cloud services because it helps them to boost their dexterity and productivity which makes the cloud services became very popular in recent years.

However, cyber hackers are now targeting these networks which opened a new door for the con artists to spread their malicious creations like ShurL0ckr Ransomware and get benefited by affecting as much system as possible. According to the security investigators, the protection systems of both cloud networks named Google Drive and Microsoft Office 365 failed to detect the presence of ShurL0ckr Ransomware virus. After that, researchers again tested approx 67 malware detecting engines including VirusTotal in order to check whether they detect this ransomware or not.

However, they got shocked after finding that almost 93% of virus detecting engines were failed to detect the most notorious ShurL0ckr Ransomware. Therefore, creation of ShurL0ckr Ransomware makes the security to launch a brief investigation on this malware. In order to analyze the exact rate of this ransomware infections onto the cloud servers, they have scanned millions of files as well. Research report reveals that more than 44 per cent of the companies that keep their important as well as confidential files onto the cloud networks like MS Office 365 and Google Drive had at least one file or application that were infected with ShurL0ckr Ransomware threat.

Related Article: Satan Ransomware: A New Ransomware Available Through RaaS

At the rate of one in three, most of the software-as-a-service programs were compromised by ShurL0ckr Ransomware. Based on the latest investigation report, more than 55% of the files stored on Microsoft’s OneDrive were compromised by the ransomware threat and the infection rate on Google Drive is almost 43%. Although, with 33% of infection rate, Dropbox and Box were considered as a least contaminated cloud services affected with this malware. On an average, a regular company keeps their valuable files around 4500,000 in the cloud networks and every 20,000^th stored file is infected with ShurL0ckr Ransomware virus.

 

Technically speaking, this ransomware is especially programmed by the team of cyber extortionists with the main purpose of targeting organizations and companies. ShurL0ckr Ransomware is known as an updated version of Gojdue ransomware which works similarly to Satan ransomware. It works as a RaaS (Ransomware as a Service) which means that anyone can obtain it from the dark market and distribute it with the main objective of getting benefited through the ransom fees paid by affected organizations. However, if you were hit by this ransomware, then immediately perform ShurL0ckr Ransomware removal instead of paying ransom money.