T-Series – PewDiePie Battle Takes an Ugly Turn- PewDiePie Fans Launching PewDiePie ransomware to Get Followers.
The battle between T-Series and PewDiePie for the top slot on YouTube is getting more fierce and dramatic day by day. Where T-Series fans are supporting the Indian music company, PewDiePie fans have resorted to extreme measures in making their idol get the coveted position including launching ransomware attacks with PewDiePie ransomware.
PewDiePie ransomware
To make sure that the number of subscribers of PewDiePie keeps increasing at a rapid pace so as to reach the required benchmark of 100 million subscribers, they have been launching ransomware, malware, and other malicious attacks to remain ahead in the competition.
See: Hackers spread password stealer malware from YouTube comment section
Reportedly, in the last three months, two PewDiePie themed ransomware (PewDiePie ransomware) strains have been released by PewDiePie fans forcing people to subscribe to their idol. The first strain was launched in mid-December, which was dubbed PewDiePie ransomware.
According to several ransomware researchers, the first strain was a poorly modified version of ShellLocker ransomware and the author probably wasn’t a pro at ransomware coding because the program didn’t save encryption keys or upload them anywhere due to which the data got permanently lost. Since it couldn’t do much damage, it was later mocked as a jock ransomware.
The second ransomware, however, is causing havoc by encrypting and destroying user data. Launched in January, it can be termed as a full-fledged and operational ransomware strain that was dubbed as pewCrypt. Coded in Java language, this time around the authors revised the coding to encrypt user data appropriately and even offered the option to recover the data but that would happen when PewDiePie would reach 100 million followers.
New secure key generated per drive letter… and they don’t bother to save any of them. So not even the criminals can decrypt anyways.
— Michael Gillespie (@demonslay335) December 17, 2018
The authors didn’t offer the affected individuals a chance to buy decryption key at all. So far PewDiePie has reached 90 million subscribers so this is a long wait for the affected users. If T-Series reaches the 100 million followers figure before PewDiePie then the encryption will be deleted automatically by the ransomware. Hence, there won’t be any way the affected users will get their data back.
The ransomware author has released the source code on GitHub as well as the command-line-based decryption tool probably to avoid legal complexities in case any of the victims file a complaint. Furthermore, to help the users stay protected Emsisoft has introduced a PewCrypt decrypter app to get the lost data before PewDiePie gets 100 million followers.
PewDiePie fans hack 150,000 printers
This is not the first time when PewDiePie fans have used malicious means to attract YouTube subscribers. On December 1st, 2018, a hacker going by the online handle of TheHackerGiraffe hacked more than 50,000 printers to promote PewDiePie YouTube channel by sending our printouts from the compromised printers.
See: Scammers hacked webcams to secretly record videos & post on YouTube
On December 7th, the same hacker took over 100,000 printers to send printouts urging users to secure their printers and subscribe to PewDiePie’s YouTube channel. In January this year, TheHackerGiraffe hacked thousands of Chromecasts and Smart TVs and ran advertisement asking people to join PewDiePie on YouTube. On December 18th, the Wall Street Journal website suffered a cyber attack when hackers left a deface page asking users to subscribe to Pro-PewDiePie.
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