The years of 2016 and 2017 had a lot of tech related developments. A lot of new innovations and concepts began their foray into the public imagination. However, there was one particular concept that dominated the headlines, for good and bad reasons alike. Cryptocurrency took the centre stage, with talk of how the next breakthrough in global economic transactions had been discovered. Depending completely on technology rather than a central banking system, it seemed like this really was the big deal.
But then came the bans and sanctions across different countries and that brought an end to a major chunk of public confidence. There was another reason why it lost the public support; ransomware. Crypto payments were an important part of ransomware attacks that beat even the most sophisticated ransomware removal tools. This is because no prior mechanism existed that could remove ransomware of this kind.
As per a report released by BitDefender, “Cryptojacking”, a term used to describe ransomware attacks that demand payment in the form of cryptocurrencies have experienced a hike since the end of 2016. Combined with some of the most nefarious ransomware like WannaCry and Locky, ransomware removal tools were rendered completely incapable in removing ransomware of this particular nature.
One of the reasons why this has set alarm bells ringing is that while in the past when hackers demanded payments through traditional means, there was a slight chance of them being apprehended. However, Cryptojacking is virtually untraceable. On top of everything, there is currently no tool that can remove ransomware of this particular kind because the industry experts don’t fully understand it yet.
Nearly all of the cryptojacking attacks that took place in 2017 used different methods to infect the systems. Ransomware removal tools are designed to detect certain patterns in order to take action. It is impossible for these tools to remove ransomware if they can’t recognize an attack is taking place at all.
While the traditional ransomware attacks mostly targeted banks and big businesses, cryptojacking attacks have been just as prolific in targeting ordinary domestic users. The lack of a proper ransomware removal tool that can deal with this issue has only served to heighten their vulnerability.
