It's that time of year when the seasons are changing. The Northern Hemisphere moves into Autumn, and the Southern Hemisphere moves to Spring. So it is with Locky. As we discussed in our last post, spam campaigns were downloading Locky ransomware that used ".lukitus" as the encrypted file extension name. Now Necurs botnet is back spamming out Locky again, only this time with a different file extension name.
Our Spam Research Database shows the spikes of emails coming from the Necurs botnet on Sept 19, 2017.
The table below shows the top 10 countries where Necurs spam originates from. These numbers indicate machines compromised with Necurs:
Samples of the email messages are shown below. They come with two different subject lines:
These messages come with .7zip attachments that contains .vbs files:
Examining the .vbs code closely, you can find the URLs that are accessed once the .vbs file is executed. The image below shows a code snippet of the URLs
Accessing these URLs, can download the Locky ransomware executable files:
- www[.]elitecommunications.co[.]uk/87thiuh3gfDGS?
- miliaraic[.]ru/p66/87thiuh3gfDGS
- troyriser[.]com/87thiuh3gfDGS?
- dmlex[.]adlino[.]be/DKndhFG72?
- targeter[.]su/p66/DKndhFG72
- cornyproposal[.]com/DKndhFG72?
Below are images for URL requests and responses respectively:
Downloaded executable files (metadata):
MD5: cd2e485d86bd2598a8728f81a54ba774
SHA1: 9ec96c64691d1c7988cba48d5c140d4c2f2db8f8
SIZE: 649,216 bytes
MD5: bab1c043a2fba947f682b6a012a9f362
SHA1: 4709c02b59f0b20c45e798e62a00b3914f738403
SIZE: 660,480
After the .vbs script finishes downloading the executable file, it will automatically execute the ransomware, which, as expected, it encrypts your files. Note that the file extension has been changed to ".ykcol" which is Locky spelled backwards:
List of file extensions that this variant will encrypt:
Locky ransom notes in various formats:
Image File (ykcol.bmp):
HTML File (ykcol.htm)
Added Registry to change wallpaper into the ransom note.
Finally, the image below shows the Locky decryptor site. The victim needs to use a TOR browser to access the URL provided in the ransom note:
Asking for 0.25 BTC or USD 1000
Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)
VBS Downloaders:
- f8d91dde125cb5b1b4c336d1d5a7d9e1b444637f
- e4976b8e04cf93450286b91eebd6eecb79361c76
Locky Ransomware:
- 9ec96c64691d1c7988cba48d5c140d4c2f2db8f8
- 4709c02b59f0b20c45e798e62a00b3914f738403
