Ransomware

Redistribution of Magniber Ransomware in Korea (January 28th)

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On the morning of January 28th, the ASEC analysis team discovered the redistribution of Magniber disguised as normal Windows Installers (MSI). The distributed Magniber files have MSI as their extensions, disguising themselves as Windows update files. According to AhnLab’s log system as seen in Figure 1, it can be noted that the distribution increased starting from January 27th. MS.Update.Center.Security.KB17347418.msi MS.Update.Center.Security.KB2562020.msi MS.Update.Center.Security.KB44945726.msi Figure 1. Increase in Magniber distribution confirmed by AhnLab’s log system The site that is currently distributing Magniber is…

DarkSide Ransomware With Self-Propagating Feature in AD Environments

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In order to evade analysis and sandbox detection, DarkSide ransomware only operates when the loader and data file are both present. The loader with the name “msupdate64.exe” reads the “config.ini” data file within the same path that contains the encoded ransomware and runs the ransomware on the memory area of a normal process. The ransomware is structured to only operate when a specific argument matches. It will then register itself to the task scheduler and run itself periodically. The following…

Caution! Magniber Ransomware Restarts Its Propagation on December 9th With COVID-19 Related Filenames

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On December 9th, 2022, the ASEC analysis team discovered that Magniber Ransomware is being distributed again. During the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, Magniber was found being distributed with COVID-19 related filenames alongside the previous security update related filenames. C:\Users\$USERS\Downloads\COVID.Warning.Readme.2f4a204180a70de60e674426ee79673f.msiC:\Users\$USERS\Downloads\COVID.Warning.Readme.502ef18830aa097b6dd414d3c3edd5fb.msiC:\Users\$USERS\Downloads\COVID.Warning.Readme.a179a9245f8e13f41d799e775b71fdff.msi Table 1. COVID-19 related filenames in circulation In the past, Magniber exploited Internet Explorer’s vulnerability to infect user PCs via Drive by Download which only required users to visit a web page. However, after Microsoft stopped supporting Internet Explorer, Magniber’s…

‘Resume.xll’ File Being Distributed in Korea (LockBit 2.0)

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In mid-2022, the ASEC analysis team shared that malware with the XLL file format (file extension: .xll) was being distributed via email. The XLL file has a DLL form of a PE (Portable Executable) file but is executed with Microsoft Excel. Since then, this type of malware had not been distributed actively, but for the first time in a long while, we found that it was being distributed with the filename, ‘Resume.xll‘. Post from May 20th, 2022: XLL Malware Distributed…

Domains Used for Magniber Distribution in Korea

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On November 7th, the ASEC analysis team introduced through a blog post the Magniber ransomware which attempted MOTW (Mark of the Web) bypassing. Afterward, using the data left in Zone.Identifier, we conducted an investigation on the sources used for the distribution of Magniber. With the typosquatting method—which exploits typos—when the user accesses the wrongly entered domain, the msi file (Magniber) is downloaded after redirecting to an advertisement page. Examination of Zone.Identifier created at this stage reveals the URL from where…