For the last year, there appeared multiple versions of ransomware viruses, different in names and codes, but identical in terms of intentions of hackers: to block the victim’s system and demand ransom for its unblocking. In most cases, such malware blocks only victim’s computer, finance.ua reports.

According to Corey Nachreiner, Chief Technology Officer of WatchGuard Technologies, providing hardware solutions for network security, the ransomware viruses will start spreading over the Internet from one computer to another very soon, which will make them a much more dangerous threat.

«After infecting one victim they will relentlessly copy themselves to each computer in your local network, to which they will be able to gain access”, Nachreiner claims, telling about ransomware viruses of the foreseeable future. – Do you already visualize such course of developments or not? I guarantee that cyber criminals already think about it».

Nir Polak, Co-Founder and CEO of the analytical company Exabeam, agrees with Nachreiner’s forecasts. He thinks that ransomware worms can become much more profitable for their authors. «They encrypt files, until you pay, and, what is worse, they leave gifts, to make sure that their troublemaking business will exist for long», Polak says.

The first ransomware virus, capable of spreading from one computer to another, became ZCryptor, which Microsoft found in May. It not only leaves trace on victim’s computer, but also copies some files to removable devices, thereby continuing spreading over multiple other computers.

Finally, the popularity of RaaS (ransomware-as-a-service) method, used by such viruses, as, for example, Petya, Mischa and Cerber, should grow. According to Norman Guadagno, the Chief Evangelist of cloudy data backup service Carbonite, just this method brought a return of 1 billion dollars to hackers in 2016.