The Week In Ransomware – January 15th 2021 – Locking You Up

It has been another quiet week for ransomware, though we did have some interesting stories come out this week.

By far, the most interesting is the news about ChastityLocker – ransomware that exploits vulnerabilities in men’s chastity belts (not joking) so that they can’t unlock them.

Other interesting news is Intel’s announcement that their new vPro chips will have built-in hardware ransomware detection and BitDefender released a decryptor for the DarkSide ransomware.

Unfortunately, after the decryptor was released, the DarkSide operation announced that they fixed the weakness allowing the decryptor to work.

Contributors and those who provided new ransomware information and stories this week include: @struppigel, @Ionut_Ilascu, @VK_Intel, @BleepinComputer, @FourOctets, @serghei, @Seifreed, @malwrhunterteam, @demonslay335, @DanielGallagher, @fwosar, @malwareforme, @jorntvdw, @PolarToffee, @LawrenceAbrams, @Telekom_group, @LukasStefanko, @GrujaRS, @Bitdefender, @vxunderground, @JakubKroustek, @M_Shahpasandi, @Kangxiaopao, @ExtendedRaavan, and @Amigo_A_.

Also Read: What Is A Governance Framework? The Importance And How It Works

January 9th 2021

Hacker used ransomware to lock victims in their IoT chastity belt

The source code for the ChastityLock ransomware that targeted male users of a specific adult toy is now publicly available for research purposes.

January 10th 2021

Three new Dharma ransomware variants

Jakub Kroustek found three new Dharma ransomware variants that append the .hub, .aol, or .14x extension to encrypted files.

January 11th 2021

Intel adds hardware-based ransomware detection to 11th gen CPUs

Intel announced today at CES 2021 that they have added hardware-based ransomware detection to their newly announced 11th generation Core vPro business-class processors.

DarkSide ransomware decryptor recovers victims’ files for free

Romanian cybersecurity firm Bitdefender has released a free decryptor for the DarkSide ransomware to allow victims to recover their files without paying a ransom.

New STOP ransomware variant

Raavan Extended found a new STOP Ransomware variant that appends the .qlkm extension.

New STOP ransomware variant

Amigo-A found a new STOP Ransomware variant that appends the .coos extension.

New Flamingo ransomware variant

Amigo-A found a new variant of the Flamingo Ransomware variant that appends the .LIZARDextension and drops a ransom note named ReadThis.txt.

Also Read: Website Ownership Laws: Your Rights And What These Protect

January 12th 2021

Capcom: 390,000 people may be affected by ransomware data breach

Capcom has released a new update for their data breach investigation and state that up to 390,000 people may now be affected by their November ransomware attack.

New Judge ransomware

xiaopao found a new ransomware that appends the .judge exension and drops a ransom note named info.txt.

January 14th 2021

Inside of CL0P’s ransomware operation

TA505 (also known as FIN11) is a financially motivated cybercrime actor. They conduct Big Game Hunting operations, such as deployment of ransomware and extortion of large ransom payment. In the past, I explained how they operate and I scrutinized their tools. If you are not familiar with TA505 and CL0P then I recommend you to read our threat actor profile of TA505 first. 

New variant of the Lucy Ransomware for Android

MalwareHunterTeam found new malicious Android app that includes ransomware capabilities. Lukas Stefanko states that this is a new variant of the Lucy Ransomware.

New ByteLocker Ransomware

GrujaRS found a new HiddenTear variant called ByteLocker that encrypts files without adding an extension.

DarkSide found to be very similar to REvil

Vitali Kremez analyzed a new sample of REvil and found it be very similar to the DarkSide ransomware.

January 15th 2021

Scotland environmental regulator hit by ‘ongoing’ ransomware attack

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) confirmed on Thursday that some of its contact center, internal systems, processes and internal communications were affected following a ransomware attack that took place on Christmas Eve.

New BlackHeel HiddenTear variant

GrujaRS found a new BlackHeel HiddenTear variant that appends the .a extension to encrypted files.

New Epsilon ransomware

GrujaRS found a new Epsilon Ransomware that appends the .boom extension and drops a ransom note named READ_ME.hta.

That’s it for this week! Hope everyone has a nice weekend!