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Home / Malware

IBM Security X-Force Research Advisory: New Destructive Malware Used In Cyber
Attacks on Ukraine

Malware February 24, 2022
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By Christopher Del Fierro co-authored by John Dwyer 8 min read

This post was written with contributions from IBM Security X-Force’s Anne
Jobmann, Claire Zaboeva and Richard Emerson.



February 25, 2022 Update

On February 24 2022, Symantec Enterprise reported a ransomware dubbed as
PartyTicket was deployed alongside the HermeticWiper malware. IBM Security
X-Force obtained a sample of the PartyTicket ransomware and has provided
technical analysis, indicators of compromise, and detections within the
PartyTicket section of this blog.



On February 23, 2022, open-source intelligence sources began reporting
detections of a wiper malware — a destructive family of malware designed to
permanently destroy data from the target — executing on systems belonging to
Ukrainian organizations. IBM Security X-Force obtained a sample of the wiper
named HermeticWiper. It uses a benign partition manager driver (a copy of
empntdrv.sys) to perform its wiping capabilities corrupting all available
physical drives’ Master Boot Record (MBR), partition, and file system (FAT or
NTFS).

This is not the first wiper malware targeting Ukrainian organizations X-Force
has analyzed. In January 2022, X-Force analyzed the WhisperGate malware and did
not identify any code overlaps between WhisperGate and HermeticWiper.

This blog post will detail IBM Security X-Force’s insights into the
HermeticWiper malware, technical analysis of the sample, and indicators of
compromise (IoC) to help organizations protect themselves from this malware.


WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

In January 2022, X-Force analyzed the WhisperGate malware. HermeticWIper is the
second newly seen destructive malware family observed in the past two months
targeting organizations in Ukraine, and reportedly other countries in Eastern
Europe. No code overlaps were identified between WhisperGate and HermeticWiper.

The pace at which these new, destructive malware families are being deployed and
discovered is unprecedented, and further highlights the need for organizations
to have an active and informed defense strategy that expands beyond
signature-based defenses.

As the conflict in the region continues to evolve and given the destructive
capabilities of both WhisperGate and HermeticWiper, IBM Security X-Force
recommends critical infrastructure organizations within the targeted region
fortify defenses. Those organizations should focus on preparation for potential
attacks that can destroy or encrypt data or otherwise significantly impact
operations.

It is of X-Force’s opinion that destructive cyber attacks will likely continue
to be leveraged against civilian targets in support of hybrid operations. In
addition, X-Force believes it is likely cyber attacks will continue to escalate
and expand in parallel with the scope of the ongoing conflict. It should be
noted the increasing number of destructive capabilities focused against private
industry and entities associated with the Ukraine and its perceived allies, will
likely alter the cyber security environment by creating an elevated threat to
regional commerce.


ANALYSIS DETAILS

This section contains the results of the analysis performed for the submitted
samples. Typical analysis includes both behavioral and static analysis.

Behavioral analysis describes the malware behavior observed on a system during
execution. Behavioral analysis typically includes actions performed on the
system such as files dropped, persistence, details surrounding process execution
and any C2 communications. It should be noted that behavioral analysis may not
capture all notable malware behavior as certain functions may only be performed
by the malware under specific conditions.

Static analysis is a deeper dive into the technical analysis of the malware.
Static analysis typically includes further details about the functionality,
obfuscation or packing in the sample, encryption used by the malware,
configuration information or other notable technical detail.


BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS

Upon execution, HermeticWiper immediately adjusts its process token privileges
and enables SeBackupPrivilege. This gives the malware read access control to any
file, regardless of whatever is specified in access control list (ACL).



It then checks for the system’s OS version to know which version copy of a
benign partition management driver (EaseUS Partition Manager: epmntdrv.sys) it
will use. The driver is initially Microsoft compressed (SZDD compression) and
embedded in its resource named RCDATA.



For Windows XP:

 * x86 – it uses DRV_XP_X86
 * x64 – it uses DRV_XPX64

For Windows 7 and up:

 * x86 – it uses DRV_X86
 * x64 – it uses DRV_X64

After verifying what version it will use, the SZDD compressed benign partition
management driver is then dropped in the following directory as:

%WINDIR%\system32\driver\<random_2chars>dr
Example: C:\Windows\system32\Drivers\vfdr

It then proceeds to decompress it and adds “.sys” as file extension.

Example: C:\Windows\system32\Drivers\vfdr.sys

It then proceeds to adjust its process token privileges again to enable
SeLoadDriverPrivilege. This token enables the process of HermeticWiper have the
ability to load and unload device drivers.



Next, it disables crash dumps by modifying the following registry key:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl
CrashDumpEnabled = 0

Note that crash dumps are memory dumps that contains information why the system
stops unexpectedly. With this option disabled, the system will be prevented to
create any dumps, thus successfully covering its tracks.

It also disables Volume Shadow Service (vss) if enabled, and disables
ShowCompColor and ShowInfoTip in all HKEY_USERS registry:

HKEY_USERS\<ID>\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
ShowCompColor = 0
ShowInfoTip = 0

ShowCompColor option displays compressed and encrypted NTFS files in color while
ShowInfoTip shows pop-up descriptions for folder and desktop items.

HermeticWiper then proceeds to add and load the created driver as a service
using Windows APIs such as OpenSCManagerW(), OpenServiceW(), CreateServiceW()
and StartServiceW().

Example:



This creates a service entry in the registry:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\<random_2chars>dr

Once the benign driver service is started and loaded in the system, it then
proceeds to cover its tracks once again by deleting the created driver in
%WINDIR%\system32\drivers and deleting the created service in the registry.

HermeticWiper enumerates a range of up to 100 Physical Drives by looping 0-100.
It uses the benign partition manager, now loaded in the system, to corrupt all
Master Boot Record (MBR) for every Physical Drive present in the system.

But it doesn’t stop there, it also corrupts all the available partition even
supporting both FAT and NTFS file system. For NTFS, it also corrupts the Master
File Table (MFT) which holds all information about a file to ensure that data
will be unrecoverable.

Once all disks are corrupted, the system should result to a crash, but just in
case, HermeticWiper also created a fail-safe sleeping thread that triggers a
system shutdown to force restart the target system.


STATIC ANALYSIS

Analysis of the wiper sample revealed it was signed with a digital certificate
issued to an organization named ‘Hermetica Digital Ltd’ and was created April
15, 2021.  A digital certificate is a file or cryptographic signature that
proves the authenticity of an item such as a file, server, or user.

HermeticWiper contains the following digital certificate:




INDICATORS OF COMPROMISE (IOCS)


HERMETICWIPER

FILE SYSTEM:
%WINDIR%\system32\driver\<random_2chars>dr

REGISTRY:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl
CrashDumpEnabled = 0
HKEY_USERS\<ID>\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
ShowCompColor = 0
ShowInfoTip = 0
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\<random_2chars>dr

SERVICE:

service name: <random_2chars>dr


HERMATIC MALWARE SAMPLES

 * https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/0385eeab00e946a302b24a91dea4187c1210597b8e17cd9e2230450f5ece21da/detection
 * https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/1bc44eef75779e3ca1eefb8ff5a64807dbc942b1e4a2672d77b9f6928d292591


DETECTION

IBM Security X-Force has developed the following Yara signature to detect
additional instances of the HermeticWiper.

import "pe"
rule XFTI_HermeticWiper : HermeticWiper
{
meta:
author = "IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Malware Team"
description = "Detects the wiper targeting Ukraine."
threat_type = "Malware"
rule_category = "Malware Family"
usage = "Hunting and Identification"
ticket = "IRIS-12790"
hash = "1bc44eef75779e3ca1eefb8ff5a64807dbc942b1e4a2672d77b9f6928d292591"
yara_version = "4.0.2"
date_created = "24 Feb 22"
date_updated = ""
reference = ""
xfti_reference = ""
strings:
$s1 = "\\\\.\\EPMNTDRV\\%u" wide fullword
$s2 = "C:\\Windows\\SYSVOL" wide fullword
$s3 = "DRV_X64" wide fullword
$s4 = "DRV_X86" wide fullword
$s5 = "DRV_XP_X64" wide fullword
$s6 = "DRV_XP_X86" wide fullword
condition:
uint16(0) == 0x5A4D and 4 of them and
pe.imports("lz32.dll", "LZOpenFileW") and
pe.imports("kernel32.dll", "FindResourceW") and
pe.imports("advapi32.dll", "CryptAcquireContextW")
}


PARTYTICKET ANALYSIS

The ransomware sample dubbed as PartyTicket is a Golang compiled ransomware
which is believed to be distributed alongside the HermeticWiper malware that
targets Ukraine organizations.

PartyTicket ransomware doesn’t include any escalation of privileges and will
execute within the context of the current user. This means that if it was
executed with a non-privileged account, folders and files requiring higher
privileges will not be encrypted.

PartyTicket adds “.[vote2024forjb@protonmail.com].encryptedJB” as file extension
to all files it encrypts. It uses both RSA and AES to encrypt targeted files.

Initial static analysis of the ransomware reveals “Biden” and “Whitehouse”
referenced within the code.



Upon execution, PartyTicket ransomware builds a list of files to encrypt by
checking for all available drives from A: to Z: and traversing all directories
except for those containing “Windows” and “Program Files”.

While traversing the directory structure, the ransomware enumerates a target
list of files containing the following extensions:

.acl, .avi, .bat, .bmp, .cab, .cfg, .chm, .cmd, .com, .crt, .css, .dat, .dip,
.dll, .doc, .dot, .exe, .gif, .htm, .ico, .iso, .jpg, .mp3, .msi, .odt, .one,
.ova, .pdf, .png, .ppt, .pub, .rar, .rtf, .sfx, .sql, .txt, .url, .vdi, .vsd,
.wma, .wmv, .wtv, .xls, .xml, .xps, .zip, .docx, .epub, .html, .jpeg, .pptx,
.xlsx, .pgsql, .contact, inc

Note that .exe is included in the target file to encrypt, indicating that the
ransomware will encrypt itself afterwards.

Once the target list is created, the ransomware will create a copy of itself
with a universally unique identifier (UUID) name for every file within the
target list. The copies are executed with a thirty-second timeout as children of
the original PartyTicket process, each responsible for encrypting a file within
the target file list.

Example PartyTicket child process execution lifecycle:

C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe cmd /c copy <PartyTicket.exe>
b6771851-a968-11eb-9f9f-000c29fc4fde.exe
b6771851-a968-11eb-9f9f-000c29fc4fde.exe.exe <target_file_to_encrypt>
timeout /t 30 && C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /C del <UUID>.exe


PARTYTICKET INDICATORS OF COMPROMISE (IOCS)

FILE SYSTEM:

%DESKTOP%\read_me.html
<encrypted_files>.[vote2024forjb@protonmail.com].encryptedJB


PARTYTICKET DETECTION

IBM Security X-Force has developed the following Yara signature to help identify
instances of the PartyTicket ransomware.

rule XFTI_PartyTicket : PartyTicket
{
meta:
author = "IBM Security X-Force "
description = "Detects the PartyTicket ransomware deployed alongside the
HermeticWiper malware. The rule includes notable strings and function names."
threat_type = "Malware"
rule_category = "Malware Family"
usage = "Hunting and Identification"
hash = "4dc13bb83a16d4ff9865a51b3e4d24112327c526c1392e14d56f20d6f4eaf382"
yara_version = "4.0.2"
date_created = "25 Feb 22"
strings:
$main_func1 = "pr1me"
$main_func2 = "dtFie"
$main_func3 = "getBoo"
$main_func4 = "selfElect"
$main_func5 = "highWay60"
$main_func6 = "voteFore403"
$main_func7 = "subscribeNewPartyMember"
$proj_path = "/403forBiden/"
$file_ext = ".encryptedJB"
condition:
uint16(0) == 0x5A4D and 7 of them
}


RESPONSE

At this time, X-Force recommends organizations implement detections for the file
system, registry, and Windows service indicators listed in this report as well
as leveraging the provided Yara rule to scan files. Additionally, global
businesses should seek to establish sound insight into their respective
networks, supply chains, third parties, and partnerships that are based in, or
serve in-region institutions. It is also advised that organizations open lines
of communications between relevant information-sharing entities to ensure the
receipt and exchange of actionable indicators.

In addition to response measures associated with the indicators of compromise,
X-Force recommends organizations consider the following proactive measures:

 * Block high-risk protocols on all B2B VPNs
 * Implement netflow monitoring at all egress points
 * Have contingency plans in place to disconnect B2B VPNs, particularly those
   that are high-risk
 * Prevent loading of unknown driver files

If you have questions and want a deeper discussion about the malware and
prevention techniques, you can schedule a briefing here. Get the latest updates
as more information develops on the IBM Security X-Force Exchange and the IBM
PSIRT blog.

If you are experiencing cybersecurity issues or an incident, contact X-Force to
help.

US hotline 1-888-241-9812

Global hotline (+001) 312-212-8034


IBM X-Force Research | Indicator of Compromise (IoC) | Malware | Malware
Analysis | X-Force
Christopher Del Fierro
X-Force IRIS Malware Reverse Engineer

Chris is a seasoned malware and threat researcher, certified system security
engineer, MCP, and ethical hacker (CEHv5). Before joining IBM, Christopher was
a...

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