The Defray campaign is a low-key one, according to Proofpoint, the company which analysed the ransomware and found it to be also targeting the manufacturing and technology industries.

The attachments masquerade as patient reports, presentations or quotes, to try and get an intended victim to click in order that the executable can be launched.

Once this is accomplished, the process is as it is with any ransomware: a ransom note is generated. In the case of Defray, this note is stored in several places as files.txt.

"After encryption is complete, Defray may cause other general havoc on the system by disabling start-up recovery and deleting volume shadow copies," Proofpoint said in its analysis.

"On Windows 7 the ransomware monitors and kills running programs with a GUI, such as the task manager and browsers. We have not observed the same behaviour on Windows XP."