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First Node.js-Powered Ransomware Discovered (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A security researcher from Emsisoft has discovered a new ransomware family coded via NW.js (formerly Node-WebKit). Why is it unique? Because it is the first of its kind to use JavaScript for the ransomware's source code, it provides cross-OS support (we may see the first universal Windows-Linux-Mac ransomware in the future), and because the security researcher describes it as "successor of CryptoLocker" when it comes to encryption quality. The ransomware, Ransom32, is offered as a RaaS service on the Dark Web, only targets Windows machines in its first version, and is currently undecryptable.
Not only do I still need to bend over for Adobe. Now open source can screw me too!
Specifically, what is the actual attack vector for this? All it seems like to me is that they've made a cross-platform trojan.... one that still needs to be explicitly executed by the end user. since the only self-executing js that I know of is within a web browser, and the javascript running inside of that can't even see the local filesystem, can it?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Since V8's randomization is flawed, anything encrypted with it should be reversible!
(I kid, I kid...)
#DeleteChrome
And Java's predecessors were old enough to drink when Java was laid out. In fact, given that computers used to be a great deal rarer than mathematicians, it may well be argued that we've had architecture-independent programs longer than we've had architectures and certainly longer than we've had OSes.
Where did you see that it ever claimed to work inside of web browser?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Javascript is not Java
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
So it's installing a server for node JS. but that does not make it platform independent. the script side of it may be but not the backend and it has to install that too.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Node-webkit stuff will definitely NOT run inside a browser. That was the entire point of node-webkit. It's a node environment fused with a webkit environment.
Which, editors, is not "node.js"; it's a fork.
"The ransomware, Ransom32, is offered as a RaaS service on the Dark Web, only targets Windows machines in its first version, and is currently undecryptable."
How does this ransomware get loaded and executed on Linux and Macs?
Aside of the fact that it has browser engine built-in and probably uses HTML for its UI, it's absolutely unrelated to browsing or HTML in any other way.
I think I've seen this one first hand. It was emailed to the victim posing as a Firstname Lastname resume.zip, inside was Firstname Lastname resume.js. Inside the .js was what looked like base64 being encoded to something, probably downloading and running the actual exe.
The biggest shock in all this is that Windows will execute a .js file when you double-click it. How fucking retarded is that? I'm looking at changing the default program for .js files to be notepad instead of the Windows Scripting Host.
Note that in the debian.org set, Java won on cpu speed in one benchmark, lost on all in terms of resource utilization compared to C. So compared to C, it seems to back the assertion that Java on a JVM is disadvantaged cpu/memory wise compared to a compiled C application. Of course this is a selection of benchmarks that has had the world to think about it and probably does not represent what the average developer will achieve with the respective languages.
Of course, there are a lot of languages whose runtime are as slow if not slower than Java, yet Java does continue to be the whipping boy for people wanting to talk about bad performance.
The short of it is that in the real world, the differences in the languages pale in comparison to what the developer can do. On a typical application I've encountered, generally optimizations within the way the code runs can yield given the same runtime can see an order of magnitude difference without even thinking about the relative contribution of the runtime differences from porting to another language. So it's a fascinating academic discussion, but comfort with the languages is far more important in reality. Java has suffered in practice because it's where all the developers went to churn out their dubious code...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If a system is set up to require administer approval for installation of software, can this ransomware actually install the core utilities it needs to interact with the Operating System, without the user noticing? I'm quite willing to never install NW.js if that's all I need to, to protect myself from this.
The new kids only knows Javscript, so...
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time