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RansomWare Disassembly Reveals Evolutionary Path

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the trojan-family-trees dept.

flaws writes "The guys at Secure Science Corporation have written a revealing article demonstrating the relationship with the most recent Ransom-based Trojan (known as Glamour) and some previous data stealing trojans. They include an open source decrypting utility for unlocking your files if infected, and some stats that are a bit disturbing. According to their report, in the past 8 months, 152,000 victims have been infected, and over 14.5 million records were discovered to be logged by the trojan."

16 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. My poor pornography :( by Token_Internet_Girl · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Dear User: We are currently holding your pornography hostage. Unless you send us $300, you will never see Jenna Jameson and that beer can again."

    --
    Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
    1. Re:My poor pornography :( by Drew+McKinney · · Score: 2, Funny

      It was a beer bottle.

      I never did get that picture back...

    2. Re:My poor pornography :( by Token_Internet_Girl · · Score: 3, Funny

      That makes more sense, I'd think a beer can would cave under the pressure... Oh wait there is no pressure in a gaping cavern... Damn!

      --
      Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
  2. Re:Noddleware. by dwarfsoft · · Score: 2, Funny

    The first trojan was created 6000 years ago and left the garden some years after that. The garden was invaded by Greeks in a wooden horse, or something...

    --
    Cheers, Chris
  3. In a related story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    . . .Trojan brand shown to BLOCK Evolutionary Path!

  4. I keep reading about these. by Lumpy · · Score: 2

    Do people still really open attachments from people that do not know or were not expecting? Are people really executing unknown .exe files?

    What is the infection vector for these things? Is it email, P2P networks fooling people into believing that mp3 really is an EXE file?

    although I cant believe that people are stupid enough to fall for a nigerian scam wanting to deposit 30 billion dollars in their accounts overnight either.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:I keep reading about these. by necro2607 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, considering that Windows by default doesn't show the file extension for known filetypes, as far as all the noobs can tell, the file they just double-clicked was "Artist - song.mp3", since they wouldn't even see the .exe at the end. Sweet deal eh?

      If you've used any common p2p apps like eDonkey or the like, you'll notice that when you search for something, even if you type some arbitrary crap like "huoshgahgauoiwhrgoaghnaj" you'll also get "huoshgahgauoiwhrgoaghnaj.mp3.exe" and "huoshgahgauoiwhrgoaghnaj pics xxx mpeg avi.exe" or similar shit. So someone searching for a keygen is going to get "exactly the keygen they wanted.exe" .... and so on and so forth. You can imagine how quickly someone will eagerly download and run a keygen they've been looking for for ages that they couldn't find anywhere else.... ;)

    2. Re:I keep reading about these. by Aellus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm living at my parents house for the next month while I'm in transition between two places. Conveniently, my fathers machine has gone haywire and I'm still trying to figure out what happened to it (OS install crashes every time, and _yes_ that includes various forms of linux). Anyway, I've come back to my computer from time to time and discovered he has been checking his email on it. Twice I've noticed that the firefox download window still had random .pdf and .exe files. He once left an email page open that he had clicked on informing him that he had received a wonderfully animated greeting card, and to view it he had to click the link to http://xx.xx.xx.xx/something.exe. Oh yes, he clicked. I'm terrified what is hiding on my machine right now.

    3. Re:I keep reading about these. by Lavene · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Do people still really open attachments from people that do not know or were not expecting? Are people really executing unknown .exe files?
      A fun experiment: Write a small, harmless program that when executed send a single ping to your home machine/ server and an equally simple program to count the incoming pings on said system.

      Write a short message saying something like "The well known virus 'YouAreTooStupid' is again spreading across the Internet. Please run the attached program to clean and/ or immunize your PC", attach your little program and send it to twenty people. Then sit back and watch your counter...

      It will keep counting for days or even weeks. Your non-viral little program will spread like a virus as stupid people 'immunize' their system. Writing viral code is just a waste of time... just ask people to distribute your malware for you. They are more than happy to do so.
  5. Why bother? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is a bit bewildering...implementing real 4096-bit RSA is simple and would have made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to produce a working decryptor without paying $300." Silly script kiddies.

    If you just XOR the data and tell people it's RSA-4096 99.44% of them are going to just accept that it's true (after googling to find out what RSA means) and send you the $300. How many are going to find out about this open source decryptor? I betcha 80% of IT consultants won't even know about it, and half of them will advise to pay up. The other half might refer to law enforcement, but how many of them are even going to have heard of the trojan. Etc., etc., etc.

    Easier to just XOR the data and get back to surfing porn. Until somebody traces the bank transfers back to your pad and a tear gas can drops in your window...

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  6. Because of who the targets are. Re:Why bother? by twitter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you just XOR the data and tell people it's RSA-4096 99.44% of them are going to just accept that it's true (after googling to find out what RSA means) and send you the $300.

    No, they are going to look for a "free decoder program," ha ha ha. Oh, the joys of non free software.

    Jokes aside, this trojan is aimed at corporate users. If it's easy to fix, big dumb companies will tell their sheep to bring forth their problems and fix them. If the creeps had been bright enough to use real encryption, there would be no solution and embarrassed users will try to fix the problem themselves. Of course, paying $300 to an extortionist will get you nothing more than another request for money unless they want to sell you back each file. For more evidence of this, see Vista pricing.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  7. Re:speaking of trojans by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 2, Funny

    I just bought 72 condoms.

    I just bought 144 condoms, and now I'm grossly oversexed.

    --
    Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
  8. You can prevent encryption by creating a reg key by jpetts · · Score: 5, Funny

    The entry should be a REG_DWORD named WinCode in the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion location, and should have the value 31337

    --
    Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
  9. Mod parent INFORMATIVE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Read the report: http://ip.securescience.net/advisories/Glamour-Ran somWare.pdf page 15.
    There is in fact a check for a value of "31337" in a "WinCode" registry key.

  10. Helpful tip by Fish+(David+Trout) · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Well, considering that Windows by default doesn't show the file extension for known filetypes, as far as all the noobs can tell, the file they just double-clicked was "Artist - song.mp3", since they wouldn't even see the .exe at the end. Sweet deal eh?


    Which is why I've been telling people for years the first thing they should do after installing Windows (immediately after selecting the "Show hidden files and folders" option and unchecking (clearing) the "Hide extensions for known file types" and "Hide protected operating system files" options in Control Panel -> Folder Options, View tab) is to run REGEDIT and do a 'Find' for all occurrences of "NeverShowExt" and delete every single one found. All of them (spare none).

    Yes, it is admittedly unappealing (at first) to see all your shortcuts (including those in your Start and Programs menus) with an ugly ".lnk" extension following them, but trust me, you get used to it pretty quickly.

    Perhaps it's just me but I personally prefer my operating system not to lie to me by default. The above procedure ensures that it doesn't.

    p.s. your example is a poor one; the ".exe" extension is always shown (never hidden) by default.

    Now ".vbs" files on the other hand...

    --
    "Fish" (David B. Trout)
  11. This post is RSA-13 encrypted by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Vs lbh jnag gb ernq vg V fryy n qrpelcgbe sbe $300 abj fraq zr zl zbarl!