Cyber Risks · Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks

Newest CTB-Locker Campaign Bypasses Legacy Security Products

Summary: Unit 42 reported a CTB-Locker ransomware campaign that spreads through spear phishing emails with double-zipped SCR attachments, after which first-stage malware downloads the ransomware from a hardcoded server list. The attackers used a polymorphic malware builder to give each victim a unique hash, and Unit 42 found 147 new unique pieces of malware in a single day, two of them fully undetectable by the legacy engines in VirusTotal.

Why it matters: Most antivirus tools misidentify CTB-Locker as CryptoLocker, and last week's hashes now average 49/57 detections only after the damage is done - too late for anyone who already lost data. With IOCs largely unchanged and new hostnames still resolving to the same known malicious IP, the attackers are reusing infrastructure that signature-based defenses were never positioned to stop in time.

Read the original at Unit 42 Palo Alto Networks ↗

Topics
Phishing & Social Engineering
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