New PyLocky Ransomware Attack on Various Organization that Encrypt More than 100 File Extensions

Newly spreading PyLocky Ransomware widely targeting and attack various organization by evading the security solutions using its sophisticated attack functionality and its activities keep increasing since the last August.

PyLocky mainly targeting European countries, particularly France, Germany and it trying to  compromise the business units to demand the ransom amount.

PyLocky ransomware written in python and packed with PyInstaller which helps to package the python based application as a stand-alone executable.

Unlike other Ransomware, PyLocky contains anti-machine learning capability that makes very difficult for static analyses and its very challenging one for researchers in depth analysis.

Name itself claimed that, this ransomware belongs to Locky which is one of the most destructive malware in history that compromised various sector around the world but it doesn’t have any relation with original Locky ransomware.

Pylocky Ransomware notes are in English, French, Korean, and Italian and also target Korean- and Italian-speaking users.

PyLocky Ransomware Infection process

The initial stage of infection starts with a spam email campaign along with malicious attachment which distributed to the victims and trick them to click the link using social engineering techniques that drop PyLocky.Once click the URL then drops a signed executable (Facture_23100.31.07.2018.exe) that eventually drops the Malware component that also contains the main ransomware executable (lockyfud.exe).

After completing its execution process, PyLocky encrypts more than 100 extension files including image, video, document, sound, program, game, database, and archive files, among others.

.dat, .keychain, .sdf, .vcf, .jpg, .png, .tiff, .gif, .jpeg, .jif, .jp2, .jpx, .j2k, .j2c, .fpx, .pcd, .bmp, .svg, .3dm, .3ds, .max, .obj, .dds, .psd, .tga, .thm, .tif, .yuv, .ai, .eps, .ps, .svg, .indd, .pct, .mp4, .avi, .mkv, .3g2, .3gp, .asf, .flv, .m4v, .mov, .mpg, .rm, .srt, .swf, .vob, .wmv, .doc, .docx, .txt, .pdf, .log, .msg, .odt, .pages., .rtf, .tex, .wpd, .wps, .csv, .ged, .key, .pps, .ppt., .pptx, .xml, .json, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .xls, .mht, .mhtml, .htm, .html, .xltx, .prn, .dif, .slk, .xlam, .xla, .ods, .docm, .dotx, .dotm, .xps, .ics, .mp3., .aif, .iff, .m3u, .m4a, .mid, .mpa, .wav, .wma, .msi, .php, .apk, .app, .bat, .cgi, .com, .asp, .aspx, .cer, .cfm, .css, .js, .jsp, .rss, .xhtml, .c, .class, .cpp, .cs, .h, .java, .lua, .pl, .py, .sh, .sln, .swift, .vb, .vcxproj, .dem, .gam, .nes, .rom, .sav, .tgz, .zip, .rar, .tar, .7z, .cbr, .deb, .gz, .pkg, .rpm, .zipx, .iso, .ged, .accdb, .db, .dbf, .mdb, .sql, .fnt, .fon, .otf, .ttf, .cfg, .ini, .prf, .bak, .old, .tmp, .torrent

once it’s complete the encryption process, PyLocky communicates with its command & control server and drops the ransom notes.

According to Trend Micro, its anti-sandbox capability, PyLocky will sleep for 999,999 seconds — or just over 11.5 days — if the affected system’s total visible memory size is less than 4GB. The file encryption routine executes if it is greater than or equal to 4GB.

Meanwhile the execution process of PyLocky, it also abuses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to check the affected system properties along with its anti-sandbox future.

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs):

Hashes detected as RANSOM_PYLOCKY.A (SHA-256):

• c9c91b11059bd9ac3a0ad169deb513cef38b3d07213a5f916c3698bb4f407ffa
• 1569f6fd28c666241902a19b205ee8223d47cccdd08c92fc35e867c487ebc999

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