Saturday, May 3, 2025
HomeRansomwareqkG Filecoder Ransmowmare Rapidly Spreading with Self-Replicating and Document-Encrypting Capabilities

qkG Filecoder Ransmowmare Rapidly Spreading with Self-Replicating and Document-Encrypting Capabilities

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

A new File Encoder Ransomware discovered with new stealthy capabilities that have implemented in VBA macros called qkG Filecoder that are entirely related to blank Word documents  Based.

qkG Filecoder is the First Ransomware that capable of self Self-Replicating capabilities from one file to another, and unlike other ransomware families, its uses malicious macro code to downloading the ransomware.

The malicious macro code is one of the techniques that is used by a .lukitus variant of Locky ransomware which is capable of auto close VBA Script.

- Advertisement - Google News

qkG capable of encrypting the document content but it won’t damage the file structure, and it will not change the file name as well.

It affects only an ActiveDocument which means that will just Encrypt the opened documents and no ransom notes will be added to the system.

According to macro malware body, The qkG was named by its developer, and these samples were added by to VirusTotal from Vietnam.

Also Read: Necurs Spam Botnet Back in Business Spreading Scarab Ransomware

How does qkG Filecoder infection chain work

Once Victims enables the macros, the normal.dot template will be modified and get infected with malicious macros.

Whenever victims will open the word, Malicious normal.dot template will be loaded and executed into the memory.

qKG will not perform any task whenever the user opens the uninfected document. Later, it will encrypt the file content once a user tries to close the particular opened document.

Next stage it will display the message with an email and Bitcoin address, along with the encrypted content.

qkG Filecoder

qkG Filecoder uses the Document_Open() autostart macro to repeat the encryption process in the clean machine.

qkG Filecoder using  XOR cipher encryption and same encryption key used in each and every encrypted documents.

According to Trend Micro, Suppose we create a document containing the text “1234567890”. After closing the document on an infected machine, the odd characters get XORed with a corresponding character in the hardcoded password “I’m QkG@PTM17! by TNA@MHT-TT2”, while each even character is left intact. The resulting encrypted document containing text “1234567890” is in the screenshot above.

“One of the tested samples contains a decryption routine.it’s not used within the malware body and accordingly doesn’t work. This malware can also be construed as malware still in development.”

qkG Filecoder

Also, Researchers found a bitcoin address that is used along with this variant. But it seems no transaction has been performed.

While not particularly pervasive regarding impact, qkG’s unique use of malicious macros is still notable. And like other ransomware families, we expect this technique to be rehashed, broadened, and repurposed for other cyber attacks.

Disabling macros significantly reduces the risk of macro-based malware such as qkG. Trend Micro said.

Balaji
Balaji
BALAJI is an Ex-Security Researcher (Threat Research Labs) at Comodo Cybersecurity. Editor-in-Chief & Co-Founder - Cyber Security News & GBHackers On Security.

Latest articles

Hundreds of Fortune 500 Companies Have Unknowingly Employed North Korean IT Operatives

North Korean nationals have successfully infiltrated the employee ranks of major global corporations at...

Stealthy New NodeJS Backdoor Infects Users Through CAPTCHA Verifications

Security researchers have uncovered a sophisticated malware campaign utilizing fake CAPTCHA verification screens to...

State-Sponsored Hacktivism on the Rise, Transforming the Cyber Threat Landscape

Global cybersecurity landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, as state-sponsored hacktivism gains traction amid...

NVIDIA Riva AI Speech Flaw Let Hackers Gain Unauthorized Access to Abuse GPU Resources & API keys

Researchers have uncovered significant security vulnerabilities in NVIDIA Riva, a breakthrough AI speech technology...

Resilience at Scale

Why Application Security is Non-Negotiable

The resilience of your digital infrastructure directly impacts your ability to scale. And yet, application security remains a critical weak link for most organizations.

Application Security is no longer just a defensive play—it’s the cornerstone of cyber resilience and sustainable growth. In this webinar, Karthik Krishnamoorthy (CTO of Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface), will share how AI-powered application security can help organizations build resilience by

Discussion points


Protecting at internet scale using AI and behavioral-based DDoS & bot mitigation.
Autonomously discovering external assets and remediating vulnerabilities within 72 hours, enabling secure, confident scaling.
Ensuring 100% application availability through platforms architected for failure resilience.
Eliminating silos with real-time correlation between attack surface and active threats for rapid, accurate mitigation

More like this

Nitrogen Ransomware Uses Cobalt Strike and Log Wiping in Targeted Attacks on Organizations

Threat actors have leveraged the Nitrogen ransomware campaign to target organizations through deceptive malvertising...

Researchers Uncovered RansomHub Operation and it’s Relation With Qilin Ransomware

Security researchers have identified significant connections between two major ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operations, with evidence...

RansomHub Ransomware Deploys Malware to Breach Corporate Networks

The eSentire’s Threat Response Unit (TRU) in early March 2025, a sophisticated cyberattack leveraging...