Ransom.Ekans

Short bio

Ransom.Ekans is Malwarebytes’ detection name for a highly targeted ransomware family. This family appears to have a special interest for Industrial Control Systems (ICS).

Type and source of infection

Ransomware is a category of malware that holds files or systems hostage for ransom.
Ransom.Ekans is very likely dropped inside affected networks by using open RDP connections. Once delivered Ransom.Ekans checks whether the system it is running on belongs to a certain domain and if so, it starts encrypting the files on the system.

Protection

Malwarebytes detects Ransom.Ekans by by using real-time protection and by using Anti-Ransomware technology.

Malwarebytes detects and protects against Ransom.Ekans

Business remediation

How to remove Ransom.Ekans with the Malwarebytes Nebula console

You can use the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Nebula console to scan endpoints.

Nebula endpoint tasks menu

Choose the Scan + Quarantine option. Afterwards you can check the Detections page to see which threats were found.

On the Quarantine page you can see which threats were quarantined and restore them if necessary.

All component/technology detections are passed to the remediation engine for complete removal from infected systems. This industry leading technology uses patented techniques in identifying all cohorts or associated files for a single threat and removes them all together to prevent malware from resuscitating itself. If you are using Malwarebytes Ransomware Rollback technology, it allows you to wind back the clock to negate the impact of ransomware by leveraging just-in-time backups.

Consumer remediation

Malwarebytes can detect and remove Ransom.Megacortex without further user interaction.

1. Please download Malwarebytes to your desktop.
2. Double-click MBSetup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
3. When your Malwarebytes for Windows installation completes, the program opens to the Welcome to Malwarebytes screen.
4. Click on the Get started button.
5. Click Scan to start a Threat Scan.
6. Click Quarantine to remove the found threats.
7. Reboot the system if prompted to complete the removal process.

Take note, however, that removing this ransomware does not decrypt your files. You can only get your files back from backups you made before the infection happened.