Locky is back. The latest Locky ransomware attacks leverage an infection technique used in Dridex malware campaigns.
It has been all quiet on the western front, with Locky ransomware attacks dropping off to a tiny fraction of the number seen in 2016. In the first quarter of 2017, Locky ransomware campaigns all but stopped, with Cerber becoming the biggest ransomware threat.
That could be about to change. Locky has returned, its delivery mechanism has changed, and the crypto ransomware is now even harder to detect.
The latest campaign was detected by Cisco Talos and PhishMe. The Talos team identified a campaign involving around 35,000 spam emails spread over just a few hours. The researchers suggest the emails are being delivered using the Necurs botnet, which has until recently been used to send out stock-related email spam.
New Infection Method Used in Latest Locky Ransomware Attacks
The latest Locky campaign uses a different method of infection. Previous Locky campaigns have used malicious Word macros attached to spam emails. If the email attachment is opened, end users are requested to enable macros to view the content of the document. Enabling macros will allow a script to run that downloads the payload. For the latest campaign, spam emails are used to deliver PDF files.
The change in infection method can be easily explained. Over the past few months, Word macros have been extensively used to infect end users with ransomware. Awareness of the danger of Word macros has been widely reported and companies have been warning their staff about malicious Word documents containing macros.
If an end user is fooled into opening an email attachment that asks them to enable macros, they are now more likely to close the document and raise the alarm. To increase the probability of the end user taking the desired action, the authors have made a change. Macros are still involved, but later in the infection process.
The emails contain little in the way of text, but inform the recipient that the PDF file contains a scanned image or document, a purchase order, or a receipt. PDF files are more trusted and are more likely to be opened. Opening the PDF file will see the user prompted to allow the PDF reader to download an additional file. The second file is a Word document containing a macro that the end user will be prompted to enable.
The rest of the infection process proceeds in a similar fashion to previous Locky ransomware attacks. Enabling the macros will see a Dridex payload downloaded which will then download Locky. Locky will proceed to encrypt a similarly wide range of file types on the infected computer, connected storage devices and mapped network drives.
The ransom payment demanded is 1 Bitcoin – currently around $1,200. This is considerably more that the ransom payments demanded when Locky first arrived on the scene just over a year ago.
One slight change for this campaign is the user is required to install the Tor browser in order to visit the payment site. This change is believed to be due to Tor proxy services being blocked.
Adding the extra step in the infection process is expected to result in more infections. Many users who would not open a Word attachment may be fooled into opening the PDF.
Businesses should raise the alarm and send out warning emails to staff alerting them to the new campaign and advising them to be wary of PDF files in emails.
