The Wall Street Journal | By: Robert McMillan | October 24, 2017:

An outbreak of malicious software Tuesday froze computer systems in several European countries, and began spreading to the U.S., the latest in a series of attacks that have plagued companies and government agencies this year.

The outbreak, called Bad Rabbit, is a form of software called “ransomware” that encrypts files on victims computers, rendering the machines unusable until a ransom is paid off. The ransomware demands a payment of 0.05 bitcoin, or about $275, from its victim, though it isn’t clear whether paying the ransom unlocks a computer’s files.

The latest outbreak, which began early Tuesday, spread for several hours to visitors of Russian language media websites, said Sergey Nikitin, a researcher at the Russian security vendor Group-IB.

By late Tuesday, it had begun spreading to the U.S., according to Czech antivirus vendor Avast Software s.r.o. Also on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued an alert saying it had received “multiple reports” of infections.

The ransomware masqueraded as an update to Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash multimedia product, security researchers said, and once downloaded it attempted to spread within victims’ networks.

The attacks “do not utilize any legitimate Flash Player updates nor are they associated with any known Adobe product vulnerabilities,” an Adobe spokeswoman said in an email.

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