Chaos ransomware variant targets Minecraft players in Japan

On Thursday 28th of October 2021, cyber security researchers from FortiGuard Labs released a report revealing they had recently discovered variant of the Chaos ransomware that is being used to target Minecraft players in Japan.

The FortiGuard Labs researchers have stated that this variant is unique due to the fact they not only encrypt certain files of a size smaller than 2ΜΒ but also destroys files that are larger than 2MB by injecting random bytes into the files, making them unrecoverable even if a ransom is paid.

This variant is being spread through text files that pretend to contain a list of Minecraft Alt accounts while hiding the ransomware variant inside it. It is believed that the effort of making the file look like a list of Minecraft Alt accounts is an attempt to target Minecraft gamers in Japan.