What’s ShrinkLocker?
ShrinkLocker is a household of ransomware that encrypts an organisation’s information and calls for a ransom payment with the intention to restore entry to their recordsdata. It was first recognized by safety researchers in Might 2024, after assaults have been noticed in Mexico, Indonesia, and Jordan.
To date, so regular. What makes it noteworthy?
The ShrinkLocker ransomware is uncommon as a result of it makes use of VBScript and Microsoft Home windows’s professional safety instrument BitLocker to help with the encryption of victims’ recordsdata.
Hold on. You imply BitLocker, the full-disk-encryption function that is imagined to increase safety by stopping anybody with out correct authentication from accessing your recordsdata?
That is the one. Ironic is not it? BitLocker, for anybody who does not know, is a function constructed into Home windows that makes use of sturdy encryption to scramble information in your laptop’s exhausting drive. If you do not know the password to unlock a pc, you possibly can’t entry its information.
Which is nice in case your laptop computer is stolen by a thief…
…however not so good if ShrinkLocker is the one which’s chosen to scramble your information with Bitlocker, and never advised you the password it used. Your laptop will not be capable of inform the distinction between you and a thief – and maintain you each locked out. Anybody beginning up the pc will likely be confronted with the usual BitLocker immediate for a password.
Has BitLocker been used on this method earlier than by cybercriminals?
Sure, for example in January 2021 a Belgian hospital had 100TB of its data encrypted on 40 of its servers utilizing BitLocker. The next 12 months a Moscow-based meat producer and distributor reportedly had its methods encrypted by a malicious attacker utilizing BitLocker.
Maybe essentially the most high-profile abuse of the built-in BitLocker instrument has been by the Iranian cybercrime gang Storm-0270 (also referred to as Nemesis Kitten), which Microsoft claimed in September 2022 had been responsible for multiple ransomware attacks.
So, does ShrinkLocker go away a ransom be aware?
No, as a substitute it adjustments the names of your whole system drives to a contact deal with for the attacker.
So how do I get my fingers on the password with out paying up?
Sadly, the password used to encrypt your drive has been saved on the attacker’s personal server.
However the excellent news is that safety agency Bitdefender has launched a free decryption tool that may assist ShrinkLocker victims recuperate their recordsdata.
Editor’s Be aware: The opinions expressed on this visitor creator article are solely these of the contributor and don’t essentially mirror these of Tripwire.
