Check Point names most wanted malwares in Nigeria

Check Point Nigeria has identified three major most wanted malware in Nigeria, they include Roughted, Ramnit and Locky.

Rommy Okonkwo, country manager, Check Point Nigeria, disclosed this to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, described Roughted as large scale Malvertising used to deliver various malicious websites and payloads such as scams, adware, exploit kits and Ransomware.

“It can be used to attack any type of platform and operating system, and utilizes ad-blocker bypassing and fingerprinting in order to make sure it delivers the most relevant attack,” he said.

The second malware he identified as Ramnit, which is a worm that infects and spreads mostly through removable drives and files uploaded to public FTP services.

“The malware creates a copy of itself to infect removable and permanent drivers. The malware also functions as a backdoor, allowing the attacker to connect to the infected machine and communicating via C&C servers. The first variant, discovered in 2010, didn’t have many capabilities beyond a basic ability to integrate itself into an infected machine. In 2011 it was modified by malicious actors to have the ability to steal web session information, giving the worm operators the ability to steal account credentials for all services used by the victim, including bank accounts, corporate and social networks accounts,” he added.

Locky the third malware is a Ransomware Trojan that targets the Windows platform. “This malware sends out system information to a remote server and receives an encryption key to encrypt files on the infected system. The malware demands that the payment to be made in the form of Bitcoins digital currency. To survive a system reboot, it adds a Run key Registry entry”.

Okonwo noted that Check Point’s latest Global Threat Index has revealed a massive increase in worldwide Locky attacks during September, with the ransomware impacting 11.5% of organisations globally over the course of the month.

“From the Index, Nigeria’s risk ranking improved from August to September, dropping 4 places – now sitting at number 13 on the list of all countries,” he added.

He said that the ranking is not necessarily indexed on Check Point solutions. “As a global vendor, you probably cannot operate efficiently without collaborating with the likes of Microsoft Vmware, Google, Amazon, etc. The same way the world is becoming a global village, likewise businesses are collaborating. Security vendors are gradually coming together to thinker on collaborating in the sense that where you cannot provide services I take it from there. That is exactly what has amounted to that drop today. Because Check Point is playing her role, Google does its part, Microsoft also.

“You also cannot take away the fact that you have to be a leader in your sector. I have to be a leader for us to conquer. It is more like a game of leaders; continuous innovations, researches, updates; all of this is what accounted for the decline.

“The bad eggs are innovating too, but you have to be few steps ahead of them. You need to put in a lot of resources for training, global marketing campaign, talk shows, publicity; this is exactly what we are doing. We are engaged in a lot of investments in R&D, personnel, expanding our reach; virtually, we are getting to the remote places, because we have seen it is a global fight. We have companies running efficient businesses; we need to reach out to them. Otherwise they will fall victims of attacks,” he stated.