Hackers Attack Windows, Linux & ESXi Systems Using Rust-Based Malware

A new ransomware family dubbed Luna was identified by Kaspersky Security researchers recently and it has been claimed that it’s written in Rust.

With its use of the programming language, it becomes the third strain to use the language after BlackCat and Hive. There are many operating systems that can be encrypted with Luna, and here they are:- 

• Windows
• Linux
• ESXi

While it is one of the key advantages that it offers to its operators. Apparently, Luna has been spotted on the dark web through an advertisement on a ransomware forum. It seems that Luna is specifically designed and tailored to be used by Russian-speaking malicious actors and not any other threat actors.

Unlike other ransomware, Luna’s command-line options are very simple and the program is still in its early stages of development. This can be attributed to the simplicity of its design, which limits the program’s capabilities.

To combine high security and speed, the X25519 elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman algorithm and AES are used in the key exchange protocol in this scheme. During this procedure, Curve25519 plays a vital role as one of the key ingredients.

Black Basta

It has also been revealed that researchers were able to obtain details on another ransomware campaign known as Black Basta. This new ransomware variant, Black Basta has been around since February 2022 but was only recently discovered.

Each encrypted filename is appended with the .basta extension, and a ransom note is created in each folder with the name readme.txt.

Moreover, Black Basta ransomware can bypass multiple endpoint security solutions by starting up the Windows system in safe mode.

Rust-based Malware

As a result of Rust’s platform-agnostic nature, the group behind this new ransomware strain was able to develop and deploy this new strain in a scalable manner. 

Here, porting the source code to a variety of platforms with relatively few modifications is all that is required. Luna ransomware also has the capability of evading static code analysis attempts by using a cross-platform language.

According to Luna, cybercriminal gangs are increasingly using cross-platform ransomware to extort money from their victims, and they are using languages such as:-

• Rust
• Golang

A very small amount of information is currently available on what victims have been encrypting with Luna ransomware. It is likely that there will be any consequences, since the group has just been discovered, and its activities are still being recorded.

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