'Rensenware': Anime Ransomware for 'Undefined Fantastic Object' Demanding 200 Million Points

Ransomwares are viruses but rather than damaging the user's system, they lock down the system and ask for money to unlock the system. They are special programs created to annoy the user but these programs usually do not steal information.

A similar program was created by a Korean programmer called "Rensenware" which is a spoof exploit named after an anime-style game called "Touhou Sierensen". Anyone affected with this ransomware had their files locked and encrypted until they score over 200 million points in the game playing at "lunatic" level.

This mission is kind of impossible to do and the users who had their system corrupted by the ransomware are getting anxious as they are not able to score these many points in the game. The files are locked on a system by this ransomware and users cannot do anything except scoring 200 million points that too at "lunatic" level. The lunatic level is the hardest level in the game, Kotaku reported.

The irony lies in the fact that the programmer himself got infected with the ransomware and he himself cannot score 200 million points in the game. It is reported that "Rensenware" was originally developed as a joke and it is a pun on the Japanese shooting game called "Touhou Sierensen," Polygon.

The users affected by the "Rensenware" saw an anime sailor girl popping on their dashboard and it said, "Minamitsu 'The Captain' Murasa encrypted your precious data like documents, musics, pictures, and some kinda project files,". Another heading read "How Can I Recover My Files?" and the solution that was given was marked as "Easy". It read, "You just play TH12 ~ Undefined Fantastic Object and score over 0.2 billion in LUNATIC level. This application will detect TH12 process[es] and score automatically."

The lunatic mode is brutal to play and scoring 2 million points is almost impossible on that level. An independent malware analyst has even confirmed that the malware works as intended. It is reported that the creator uploaded the "Rensenware" to Github and it infected many users who downloaded it from the website.