A piece of 'ransomware' recently discovered in circulation targets not only the Internet Explorer browser but Firefox and Opera as well.
Ransomware is malicious software that attempts to elicit money from the victim by placing a pop-up message on the screen until a fee is paid to remove it.
This particular piece of ransomware, Trojan.Ransompage, causes a pop-up message to appear on every webpage you visit and by targeting multiple browsers it prevents the victim from getting rid of it by switching from Firefox to Opera, for example.
"Not only has the malware author chosen to target the two most popular browsers in Firefox and Internet Explorer, but Opera is also a target," said Fred Gutierrez of Symantec.
"This shows that the malware author wanted to target more than one browser in order to maximize the chances of success in case an infected user decided to change browsers rather than pay the ransom," Gutierrez continued.
However, Symantec said that the ransomware is designed to expire in 30 days so anyone who falls victim to the infection can remove it simply by setting their system clock forward one month.
Topic: Ransomware hits three browsers (Read 505 times)