We have noticed a change of behaviour in the latest spam email campaigns used by Locky. Since its first release Locky took advantage of compromised domains to download the dropper binary, while recently Locky dropper is being delivered embedded into the loader code itself. By tracking these campaigns we have also noticed that Locky’s authors have made several attempts at embedding the dropper into the loader.
Continue reading “Locky Dropper Now Comes Embedded in the Loader”
On 13th of June, while monitoring Twitter, we have observed an interesting tweet that reported a suspicious domain with an open directory listing. Among the listed files we found a zip archive containing a javascript. In this blogpost we will take a closer look at the javascript and we will show that it has ransomware capabilities, which we have dubbed RAA ransomware and that additionally delivers a dropping stage for the Pony malware.
Continue reading “RAA – An entirely new JS ransomware delivering Pony malware”
We have already written about Nemucod downloader when it was paired with 7-Zip, this time we have spotted a new variant in the wild that appears to be a further evolution from previous versions. Before we dig into the analysis part, let’s take a quick look at the most recent history of Nemucod:
Continue reading “Nemucod meets a new buddy: PHP”
ReaQta has been monitoring a new and massive worldwide Locky ransomware spam campaign. The attacks are carried out in the usual way: a javascript file attached to an email message delivered to the victims, although this is the first campaign we have tracked that shows a different deployment behaviour. The javascript downloader usually retrieves Locky’s dropper from a compromised website, while in this case the downloaded file is encoded making it harder for traditional protection solutions to spot the incoming threat.
Continue reading “Locky Ransomware Shipping With a New Loader”
In Part 1 we’ve analyzed a vast Crypt0L0cker ransomware distribution operation currently affecting continental Europe and ready to jump to new countries. In this second post we’ll analyze in detail the server side code used to dispatch the victims towards the correct websites, up to the ransomware itself. We’ll also analyze the ransomware behaviour and how it infects the victim’s computer.
Continue reading “Uncovering a ransomware distribution operation – Part 2”
Nemucod is a Javascript downloader used to perform all kind of nasty stuff, recently a “ransomware” routine has been found in some samples, even if a simple one: a XOR with a predefined 255 bytes key. In other instances we have observed the download of a malicious executable responsible for the encryption process. What we will analyze this time is a variant that downloads the infamous Kovter together with the official 7zip CLI application.
Recently we uncovered a ransomware distribution operation targeting European users and carried out via phishing scams. In this post we will show how we have conducted the research: from the initial infection stage back to the person that is orchestrating the whole operation. These campaigns are targeting Italy, Denmark and Spain, although we have detected two new campaigns about to be started by the same author. The ransomware delivered is the infamous Crypt0L0cker, a descendant of TorrentLocker ransomware.
Continue reading “Uncovering a ransomware distribution operation – Part 1”
Bandarchor is a ransomware identified for the first time at the end of 2014 that seemed almost to disappear halfway through 2015. With some surprise we’ve found it to still be alive, well and with a very low detection rate: in fact lately we have been receiving help requests from companies infected by a ransomware that didn’t appear to belong to the known triad: CryptoLocker, CryptoWall or TeslaCrypt and we decided to investigate what appears to be a new campaign using a new variant.
Continue reading “Bandarchor Ransomware Still Active”
On the 2nd of January Joe Security research team uncovered a new threat dubbed HydraCrypt ransomware. We gave it a quick test run to understand if our customers are already protected from the threat or not, and what damage this new ransomware can cause to the infected systems. For what we have seen so far this ransomware appears to be less sophisticated than Cryptolocker, CTB-Locker or Cryptowall, but it’s certainly not less dangerous.
Continue reading “Hydracrypt Ransomware Analysis”
Recently the ransomware world provided a couple surprises: the discovery of CryptoWall 4 in the wild and a new ransomware dubbed Chimera, so far found to be infecting businesses mainly in Germany and threatening to leak personal files if the ransom isn’t paid.