SecurityWeek, February 4, 2016
Kaspersky Lab researchers warn that Hidden Tear, the so-called educational ransomware that was released as Open Source in August 2015, has been used to create more than two dozen spin-offs. Originally created to teach users about ransomware and how it works, Hidden Tear was designed to only encrypt files in a “\test” directory, and would not encrypt anything if the directory did not exist – ensuring that user files would be protected. Interestingly enough, spin-offs of the program created by malicious actors showed that cybercriminals did not remove the errors in the original educational version, which resulted in a less serious threat to users.
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