First Android ransomware detected

ESET Antivirus Lab has detected a virus that encrypts user files on Android smartphones and tablets.
Viruses encrypting user files have long been known by a million PC owners for their very unpleasant detrimental effects, which are sometimes disastrous in their dramatic nature.

Many of them irretrievably lost not only time and money, but also a lot of valuable documents, family archives of photos and videos, which sometimes accumulated over the course of a dozen years. After all, decrypting files encoded by a robust algorithm is almost impossible. Even with a supercomputer, this could theoretically take about 100 years.

And this terrible virus got to mobile devices. The new DoubleLocker ransomware virus, discovered by ESET specialists, is aimed at the Android mobile platform. Continue reading →