What's worse than having your files held hostage by ransomware? Having them held hostage until you can score 200,000,000 points in an anime shoot-'em-up is probably not the answer you had in mind, but until something worse comes along this takes the cake. It even has a cute little "Warning!" screen to tell you what kind of ungodly predicament you've found yourself in.
Named Rensenware after the shoot-'em-up game Touhou Seirensen - Undefined Fantastic Object, the malware works like other ransomware holding all your computers files hostage, normally until you pay whoever gave it to you money, but Rensenware wants you to play the game on Lunatic level until you get 200 million points. Here's a taste of the utter lunacy (see what I did there?) that Rensenware expects you to conquer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnM0rJQJJ8o
You may be asking "What sadistic, evil genius created this monstrosity?" The answer to that question would be a Korea-based undergraduate student. They had initially made the ransomware as a joke, but since it had been released on GitHub Rensenware has been infecting the public's computers. The creator has since apologized and created a tool that forces Rensenware to decrypt your files without having to dedicate your life to an anime shoot-'em-up.
https://twitter.com/malwrhunterteam/status/850239122950168576
Luckily, the person behind the malware didn't have any malicious intent, and Rensenware isn't much of a problem since they provided a way to remove it. The bigger issue is that now that this has happened it's only a matter of time before we start to see people copy it in order to troll others. Which makes it a good time to remind everyone to stay away from clicking links you're not sure of and to not open emails from people you don't know, also make sure you have some kind of malware/anti-virus protection for your devices.
