CIA Election AntiCheat Malware Preys on Voter Fraud Concerns

New malware claims voters must pay $50, or their vote won’t count in November’s election…

Malware writers exploit trending news.  It is easily one of the most successful ways for them to gain access to your system.  Many times they will claim to have breaking news on a celebrity death or divorce.  This latest form of malware targets election fraud.  According to BleepingComputer, the malware is titled CIA Election AntiCheat Control – 2016.  If successfully downloaded, the screen below will show up on the PC screen.

cia-malware

The malware is demanding users make a $50 payment in order for their vote to count in this year’s election.  Once downloaded, the malware blocks various programs from running such as Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome in order to prevent users to find solutions to remove the malware.  If the user pays the $50, the malware sends the hard drive ID to a predetermined email address.  Upon receipt of the payment, the malware connects to a website to ensure the hard drive ID is present.  If it is, then the malware uninstalls itself and send the PC user the following message.

cia-malware-2

Forunately for PC Matic users who have SuperShield enabled, this malware would not be able to execute.  Upon scanning the malicious file, SuperShield would determine it is not on the whitelist and block it from running.

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