RagnarLocker Ransomware Threatens to Release Confidential Information
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The RagnarLocker ransomware first appeared in the wild at the end of December 2019 as part of a campaign against compromised networks targeted by its operators. The ransomware code is small (only 48kb after the protection in its custom packer is removed) and coded in a high programming ...
ENS 10.7 Rolls Back the Curtain on Ransomware
Ransomware protection and incident response is a constant battle for IT, security engineers and analysts under normal circumstances, but with the number of people working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic that challenge reaches new heights. How do you ensure an equivalent level of adaptable malware protection on or off ...
Tales From the Trenches; a Lockbit Ransomware Story
In collaboration with Northwave As we highlighted previously across two blogs, targeted ransomware attacks have increased massively over the past months. In our first article, we discussed the growing pattern of targeted ransomware attacks where the primary infection stage is often an info-stealer kind of malware used to gain credentials/access to ...
Nemty Ransomware – Learning by Doing
Executive Summary The McAfee Advanced Threat Research Team (ATR) observed a new ransomware family named ‘Nemty’ on 20 August 2019. We are in an era where ransomware developers face multiple struggles, from the great work done by the security community to protect against their malware, to initiatives such as the ...
Ransomware Maze
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Maze ransomware, previously known in the community as “ChaCha ransomware”, was discovered on May the 29th 2019 by Jerome Segura[1]. The main goal of the ransomware is to crypt all files that it can in an infected system and then demand a ransom to recover the files. ...
CSI: Evidence Indicators for Targeted Ransomware Attacks – Part II
In our first article we discussed the growing pattern of targeted ransomware attacks where the first infection stage is often an info-stealer kind of malware used to gain credentials/access to determine if the target would be valuable for a ransomware attack. In this second part we will pick up where ...
CSI: Evidence Indicators for Targeted Ransomware Attacks – Part I
For many years now I have been working and teaching in the field of digital forensics, malware analysis and threat intelligence. During one of the classes we always talk about Lockard’s exchange principle: “with contact between two items, there will be an exchange”. If we translate that to the digital ...
Analysis of LooCipher, a New Ransomware Family Observed This Year
Initial Discovery This year seems to again be the year for ransomware. Notorious attacks were made using ransomware and new families are being detected almost on a weekly basis. The McAfee ATR team has now analyzed a new ransomware family with some special features we would like to showcase. LooCipher ...
Spanish MSSP Targeted by BitPaymer Ransomware
Initial Discovery This week the news hit that several companies in Spain were hit by a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks themselves are not new but, by interacting with one of the cases in Spain, we want to highlight in this blog how well prepared and targeted an attack can be ...
Buran Ransomware; the Evolution of VegaLocker
McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research Team observed how a new ransomware family named ‘Buran’ appeared in May 2019. Buran works as a RaaS model like other ransomware families such as REVil, GandCrab (now defunct), Phobos, etc. The author(s) take 25% of the income earned by affiliates, instead of the 30% – ...
