Badly-Coded Ransomware Locks User Files and Throws Away Encryption Key (softpedia.com) 128
An anonymous reader writes: A new ransomware family was not tested by its developer and is encrypting user files and then throwing away the encryption key because of an error in its programming. The ransomware author wanted to cut down costs by using a static encryption key for all users, but the ransomware kept generating random keys which it did not store anywhere. The only way to recover files is if users had a previous backup. You can detect it by the ransom message which has the same ID:qDgx5Bs8H
Like the old viruses (Score:5, Funny)
So it's like the old fashion viruses that actually cause damage to your system then.
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Yes. It's the "erase your files" kind of virus...
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Hell yes! Those were the good old days. Corrupt and destroy, for no reason other than sheer malice. Yeah!
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No, he's poisoning the well for them. Now people will think: my data is lost and cannot be recovered, even if I pay. I think this developer is going to get a few very unpleasant house calls - these people don't do regular law enforcement.
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This would have never happened. (Score:5, Funny)
If the author decided on an open source project, the community could have found and developed a fix during beta testing.
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Actually, TFA does admonish the author for not testing his malware, interestingly enough.
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Worse, they give the instructions on how to fix it. Here is their rationale"
At BleepingComputer we never disclose bugs in a ransomware infection as that will just alert the developer and cause them to fix the weakness. In this particular case, though, we are going to tell the developer how to fix his mistake so that he doesn't continue to destroy his victim's data going forward. In our opinion, if a person becomes infected, we would rather they have a fighting chance of recovering their files rather than no chance at all.
So now, instead of abandoning it because it's broken, he can fix it and continue on his merry way:
The problem is that the AES key was not properly padded when it was converted into a Base64 string. When the PowerShell script tried to decode this string, it failed, and instead of the variable $RgDhcxSdghWd containing his decoded AES string, it now contained a NULL or empty value. If he had added one one more = character to the string, it would have worked as intended and everyone would have had the same AES key.
That's as stupid as pointing out to the guillotine operator who is about to behead you that the guillotine won't work because there's a knot in the rope.
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It's more like if the developer was prison guard, he would be giving away key to prison for each passerby. Currently he locks you with wrong key and throws it away, thinking he has a copy. Except he doesn't. If he had used the right key, anyone could come and open the door.
Every other prison guard has their prison's door opening key with just them, but they give out the one with which you can lock the door.
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No this is the same as pointing out the the guillotine operator the the blade is going to hit the trigger of the big ass pile of tnt that is under the platform and it is going to kill him and everyone around him. And suggesting that perhaps you move it to the right a little.
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Alerting the guillotine operator that there's a knot in the rope might be a prudent thing to do, if the knot is located where your head will only be partially lopped off and mean you get a more painful death.
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And that is what he wants. He is one of those fools that wants to bleed to death in agony.
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I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure the user is a she. We finally get a girl on the internet and you gotta go scare 'em away! Oh sure, "but they're not a real girl!" That's what you'll probably say. Well, if they identify as a girl you can sex 'em and it's not even gay! Hah! That's what I say!
Err, actually I say it doesn't much matter but that's a topic for another day. I guess.
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the guillotine won't work because there's a knot in the rope.
Methinks you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how guillotines work. Lucky for you no one uses them anymore!
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Isn't there a rope/chain which helps you pull the blade back to the original position? If this rope is across a pulley, or hole, and has a knot, it won't wind down properly, likely halting the blade. I don't know all the nuances of the RL construct of a guillotine, but i'm fairly sure it could be constructed with a rope and it may have a blocking knot feature and still be called guillotine.
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If the author decided on an open source project, the community could have found and developed a fix during beta testing.
To be fair, the author probably coded it, posted it somewhere, tried it out and then... "oh shit!"
So they likely half-tested it, and it did half work.
What a role model (Score:5, Interesting)
I always thought we should lock up those bastards and throw away the key. Shall we take it as a recommendation how he wants to be treated when we catch him?
Re: What a role model (Score:1)
Due to an error in the prison system, we can't release you even though you've served your time. We though it would save costs use the same key for all cells, but your cell accidentally has a different lock to which we don't have the key.
Hope you have a backup!
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I always thought we should lock up those bastards and throw away the key. Shall we take it as a recommendation how he wants to be treated when we catch him?
My object all sublime.
I shall achieve in time —.
To let the punishment fit the crime —.
The punishment fit the crime —.
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In this time, it's more often that you have to ponder how to make the crime fit the punishment that you'll get anyway.
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People like you is the reason the world is shit.
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People who do not keep backups WILL be tortured in the next several years, unless they are extremely lucky...
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I always thought we should lock up those bastards and throw away the key. Shall we take it as a recommendation how he wants to be treated when we catch him?
Seems like a waste of a perfectly good prison cell. I'd be happier if he never made it to the prison alive.
Re: What a role model (Score:1)
They frequently are. It's called not making bond.
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Each post you make paints you as a bitter, sad, lonely, hateful person. It's not good reading - like a cry for help from someone who knows it's too late to meaningfully redress the balance in their life, that they are doomed to sail their lonesome, twisted course to the grave.
Lol, I sense projection. :)
Sorry to dampen your little jealousy-fest, but it may come as a surprise to you to learn that I'm not here to live up to your expectations. :) lol
As for me, well....I have wonderful wife who I love very much, quite a few good friends who I've known for decades, and I just went back to work after being heavily courted by a company in Redmond WA (no, not Microsoft). They actually paid me enough to come out of a very comfortable retirement. What's not to like about that? :)
My son is
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What a dumbass. If he had actually succeeded with his programming, it would have meant that any victim could give or sell the encryption key to his other victims.
Too bad he didn't also have a random ID, or accidentally give out the contact info of a "legitimate" ransomware maker, so that he could piss off the other ransomware makers even more by his "killing" of data hostages.
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Put an electronic lock on the door that uses his code for unlocking it.
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Right, and that can happen either on purpose (cynicism, looking for efficiency), by accident (incompetence, bad planning), or some grey area (poor impulse control, rage). All excellent prerequisites for a career in the ransom business. Someone who didn't have such problems, causing them to constantly fuck things up, would presumably have a legitimate job where they didn't have to take such risks.
So easy to break the analogy between this and a real kidnapping though: A loved one is unique and irreplaceable,
Usually the case (Score:2)
Isn't that usually the case? I never thought paying the ransom would actually be followed by the recovery of the data...
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The malware producers release the keys mostly, because people that are infected hear about that and are more willing to pay up...
Re: Usually the case (Score:1)
Important to have backups which cannot be accessed by your system in any case (unplugged USB drives, cloud service with their own revision system etc)
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Even multiple USB drives won't necessarily help you.
Let's say you do backup every week, alternating between two disk you keep in separate places. You catch the ransomware. Next weekend, the malware encrypts your backup disk #1. You store that encrypted backup in a safe place. The following weekend, you connect your second backup disk to do another backup. Now both of your backups are encrypted.
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Why would you continue to back up after you have been infected?
Also, even if you did, your new backups shouldn't be overwriting your old backups.
Also, just enabling shadow copy on your hard drive and running as a standard user will defeat all ransomware even if you never back up.
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Isn't that usually the case? I never thought paying the ransom would actually be followed by the recovery of the data...
If that were the case anyone who became a victim of it would spread the word and eventually people would realize that you don't get the data back by paying.
The business model only works if the victim believes that they can get their data back.
This bug actually hurts the ransom-ware business.
Re:Usually the case (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, apparently they do give you the decryption key, once you pay. If word of mouth was that it doesn't help to pay, then a lot less people would pay the ransom.
So this guy is destroying a very lucrative business model for some very evil people. It will probably not end well for him.
Re:Usually the case (Score:5, Funny)
This is why we can't have nice hostages.
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Well, they're kneecaps I won't feel very sorry for.
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From what I have seen, these "ransomware" entities operate very much like any other business. Complete with office space, customer service and technical support. They want you to be "happy" with the end result (decrypted files) so that you can tell your friends that you got your files back.
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Recently, several of these scum have refined their business model and actually deliver decryption keys. In an utterly immoral move, possibly designed to inflate the perception of threat, the FBI has even recommended to pay: http://uk.businessinsider.com/... [businessinsider.com]
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This Radiolab episode follows a ransomware victim through the tricky process of paying off the criminals and getting her files back.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/... [radiolab.org]
DUMB (Score:5, Funny)
Disasters Usually Motivate Backups
If only (Score:2)
Unfortunately it seems some people Just Don't Get It. They would probably recoil at the idea of only having one set of house keys yet for some reason they think having only 1 copy of important files is just dandy. To be frank, they deserve what they get because if this sort of malware doesn't get them then a dead hard drive or their own fat fingers on a delete button will one day.
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What if they already did and their backups got encrypted for ransoms too? :P
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On this subject, as a refugee from OneDrive now that they capped it at 1TB for paying customers, I switched to SpiderOak. They were offering a deal where you got unlimited space for $150/year. Not the cheapest but their software is reasonable. I'd like more flexibility to have multiple backup sets, but at this point I'm just happy to be backed up. Or, at least I will be in six months once it has all uploaded.
At least OneDrive has just gone read only so I can restore from there if I need to. Screw you Micros
Re:Developers... (Score:5, Informative)
The dev - Someone who knows how to code and what this software is supposed to do, and intimately.
The hacker - Someone who knows how to code, and doesn't care what the software wants because dammit, he's going to make it dance a frigging jig for giggles.
The user - Doesn't know coding, but knows the subject the software is based around because he's the one that uses it. He knows exactly what it needs to do and what he wants it to do and will gladly tell you how you are failing in that.
The ignorant - Can't code, doesn't want to, isn't sure if this computer thing is actually filled with enslaved magic pixies. If there's anyone that will do something no intelligent rational person will ever think of, the ignorant is king. You'd be amazed how many show-stopper bugs have been found by them.
Need for a Dedicated Download Computer (Score:3)
Get a virtual machine up and running or an older MacBook off eBay and it does Internet and all downloads.
Any crap needs to be isolated to the VM or email machine.
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Or just a Chromebook and a USB stick.
Just asking...... (Score:2, Informative)
Just asking......would anyone really be all that upset if the fucker that coded this was hunted down and beaten to death? Or shot full of holes?
I've searched my soul (what tiny, tiny fragments remain) and personally I wouldn't mind one bit.
Seriously, if I read tomorrow morning that he'd been found dead as a result of some brutal, awful violence, I wouldn't even stop eating my bagel.
Re:Just asking...... (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell is wrong with people like you? It's not that the guy isn't a first class cunt, but what sort of poorly controlled emotion causes a person to warm to the idea of torture and death? I sometimes wonder whether some humans have a repressed bloodlust and they use righteous indignation as an excuse to bring it out.
Sure, lock the guy up, seize everything, whatever, following due process. Be more civilised than he is, not less.
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what sort of poorly controlled emotion causes a person to warm to the idea of torture and death?
One too many instances of thinking, "This is why we can't have nice things."
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What the hell is wrong with people like you?
Because on the internet, everyone is a tough guy and everything is just words.
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I know. I am constantly amazed at the outright hostility of people.
It is NOT OK to threaten people because you disagree with them.
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You're really one tough old guy, JustAnotherOldGuy.
If you choked on your bagel tomorrow, I wouldn't give a shit
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Naaa, just let him pay for all the damage he has done. Should take him a few lifetimes.
because he bounced all Command Control through you (Score:1)
because he bounced all Command Control messages through your IP address and now they are coming for you.
Any death/extreme penalty can be abused and used to set up innocents and is the main reason countries/states choose not to implement them.
Your innocent in the eyes of the law until you are proven guilty, only that does not mean a) you did it b) you deserve it. ::I am commenting on Slashdot as an Anonymouscoward, this can not end well::
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If I had a kid like that, I'd kill them myself!
(No, not really. Just following the theme.)
I'd actually hire them a good lawyer and get them mental health help - failing to work towards their mental health would mean my retraction of their lawyer. That and, well, my kids don't have to commit crimes for money but, if they did, that's how I think I'd go about it.
Money back (Score:2)
Low quality criminals (Score:2)
That hacker has what it takes to join the Home Alone crew (the wet bandits)
Ummmm... about that linux "ransomware" (Score:5, Funny)
Now that we've decided to help bug-fix ransomware, anyone consider its usability?
"Once launched with administrator privileges, the Trojan loads into the memory of its process files containing cybercriminals' demands:"
In other words, it probably goes something like this:
% tar -xf "ransomware-dontrunme-whatareyouanidiot?.tar" ./configure > /dev/null 2>&1
/dev/null 2>&1
/dev/null 2>&1
./runransomware
% cd ransomware-dontrunme
%
% make >
% make install >
%./runransomware
Error: Permission denied. Please run as root.
% sudo
Password:
Segfault in libc.so. Please reinstall.
Followed by much sighing, and trying to google what the problem is.
See, this is the problem with the Linux desktop. Even installing malware is just too darned complicated.
Re:Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
And how exactly does someone get infected with this anyhow? According to your link: "The malware requires administrator privileges to run and, presumably, a sysadmin who would allow for such a program to run unbridled." There's no mention on that page, or the "Dr. Web" page it links to, how anyone actually gets infected with this thing other than somehow getting themselves a copy and then intentionally running it as root. If there is an infection path it takes in the wild, these pages aren't specifying.
It's also mentioned that it works on systems running MySQL and Apache. Who runs Apache any more? Every serious Linux webserver is running Nginx now.
Finally, you're comparing apples to oranges. The Windows malware is for desktop and/or server Windows. The Linux malware appears to only be targeted at webservers. I don't know about you, but I don't run a webserver; for my websites I just use simple shared hosting and let someone else worry about that stuff (if my web host gets infected, no big deal, I'll just reload from backups). I'm worried about my desktop (/laptop) PCs, but since I run Linux there, I don't have to worry about any *serious* malware threats. No one has yet proven that there is any *serious* malware threat for desktop Linux.
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> Who runs Apache any more? Every serious Linux webserver is running Nginx now.
I don’t know if you’re trying to start another "BSD Is Dying" thing but
http://news.netcraft.com/archi... [netcraft.com]
Nginx is certainly making headway but it's still only half Apache's market share of the million busiest sites, and 30% among all active sites.
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Well, that's what happens when you use Windows: you get infected with badly-written ransomware.
Full disclosure: I'm 100% on Linux and in fact have never used Windows as my primary desktop. I had a spell of using it as a games platform before I got the Xbox, but even then Linux was my desktop.
If you think Windows has such ransomware and Linux doesn't because of the OS itself, you are smoking some good stuff. The reason is social, not technical. There is NOTHING that stops Linux from doing the same thing. The reason you don't see it is that the density of highly technical Linux users is very large,
Re:Windows (Score:5, Informative)
A malware app that someone has to be dumb enough to manually install is one thing, getting infected with something because your web browser or your email program is vulnerable is another. Most of the Windows malware I've heard about doesn't require someone to manually install software, it's as easy as clicking on the wrong link in IE.
Also, a lot of Windows malware seems to thrive because Windows is homogeneous. Remember that Lenovo malware that was (still is I think) baked into their laptops' BIOS, and would replace a critical Windows system DLL? That stuff only works because Windows is so uniform. If someone has Windows 8.1 installed, then you can count on that DLL being there, and you can count on being able to replace it with a modified DLL and have things work out the way you expect. This just isn't the case with Linux: every distro is different, files are in different places, files are not binary compatible (you can't just take libfoo.so.4.2.1.0 from Ubuntu and drop it into an Arch install and expect it to work), distros change versions every 6 months (so libfoo.so from Mint 17 is incompatible with libfoo.so from Mint 17.1), systems don't even use the same init system and low-level utils (Ubuntu and Mint still use upstart, Slackware still uses sysvinit), etc. Everything works fine because of package management and distros building everything all together at once, but malware expecting to monkey with the internals simply won't work because there's too many variables.
Yes, if someone distributes some Linux dancing-monkey malware, there's nothing you can do to prevent people from being stupid and installing it, but I haven't heard about this attack vector being a serious problem on *Windows* for a long time. Even the Windows users aren't that naive any more; they've had this stuff drilled into their heads for years. They're getting infected in other ways.
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>nearly all the windows malware requires the user to install. especially the ransomware stuff.
This shows that you are clueless about this.
Right now, I am looking at the output of the malware testing cluster's I designed/wrote for my employer. It grabs the latest malware from emails, live exploit URLs, etc. and show what the payload does.
Right now the system has captured 3 ransomeware in the last hour (slow day). None of them require any user interaction beyond going to an URL in an outdated website.
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Most of the Windows malware I've heard about doesn't require someone to manually install software, it's as easy as clicking on the wrong link in IE.
Define "manually install". I would say the opposite. The amount of malware that spreads via windows these days requires some form of user interaction, typically clicking yes to the question of "Do you trust this random program from the internet". Even browser exploit based ones will typically require some kind of user interaction. It's been a long time since a URL or simply viewing a picture did harm to the computer.
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You are kind of coming down hard on IE.
There have been plenty of 0 day exploits in all of the major web browsers.
But more importantly, the exploits are generally Flash or Java based... which is browser agnostic.
Even still, just like with Linux, if you run as a standard, unprivileged user, the damage to your system will be limited to just your data.
Better yet, if you do this AND enable shadow copy on your data volume, you can recover all of your files even if you don't have any backups. This is because shado
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Most people who would fall for that are also people who have no idea how to open a console window (or even know what that is). My wife uses Mint KDE on her laptop, and gets along just fine with it for all the basic tasks (web browsing, LibreOffice documents, file management, scanning, etc.), but ask her to do something on the "console" and she'll look at you like you have two heads.
People like this who use Windows instead also never, ever use the shell.
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