Bitdefender Labs, the security company that discovered Cryptolocker ransomware, says the fate of the malware is “undetermined,” despite continuous takedown efforts.
Last month, international law enforcement significantly disrupted the Gameover Zeus botnet, which was being used to distribute Cryptolocker, but a Wednesday blog post by Bitdefender noted that infected computers worldwide were still trying to communicate with Cryptolocker's infrastructure, which remains up.
While the June takedown efforts “shook the Cryptolocker operation pretty thoroughly,” Bitdefender believes that an updated version of the malware could rear its head, the post said.
In its nine months of existence, the ransomware extorted more than $27 million from victims, the firm revealed. Last September, Bitdefender discovered the threat, which claimed more than 12,000 victims in less than a week by spreading through phishing emails.
