Conti Ransomware Practical Study of Static and Dynamic Methedologies
Conti Ransomware Practical Study of Static and Dynamic Methedologies
ISSN No:-2456-2165
Abstract:- Ransomware viruses have grown to represent .onion. Since then, the CONTI extortion websites
a serious concern over the past few years. Ransomware https://continews.click and http://continewsnv5otx5 kaoje7
called Conti is one of the variations. Data on the victim's krkto2qbu3gtqef22mnr7eaxw3y6ncz3ad.onion have been
PC was encrypted, transmitting distributing it to other used to transfer data from 567 different firms. Only victims
machines on the same network and demanding a whose identities are posted on the extortion website or
ransom, attacks turn into a serious threat and harm the whose data is exchanged and then erased are included in this
system. Families of ransomware usage sophisticated total. Additionally, Conti serves the victim data that was
encryption, dissemination techniques, removing all obtained via another covert TOR service.
prospects for data recovery. Analysis of ransomware is
essential to determine its characteristics and prevent its The Conti ransomware attacked ExaGrid, a backup
spread to design and create appropriate detection and storage business, in May 2021. The Conti group of
mitigation methods. In this paper, we provide the results Conti sought a $7 million ransom; ExaGrid was able to
of our investigation of the notorious Conti malware. The bargain and ultimately paid $2.6 million [17]. In May
research that is being presented in particular looks at 2021, the Conti ransomware targeted the Health
the behaviour of Conti; it is detonated in a designated Services Executive (HSE) in Ireland [17] and demanded
created virtual lab environment. We employ several a $20 million ransom, which Ireland [17] refused to go
malware analysis technologies to do static and dynamic for a settlement.
analysis. The information may be utilised to develop Conti is most aggressive and lucrative ransomware,
efficient Conti detection and mitigation tools in addition with ransom demands as high as $25 million, according
to those for other ransomware families that exhibit to the FBI. The invasion in Ukraine, the Conti group
similar behaviours. declared in February 2022 that it would fully back the
Russian government.
I. INTRODUCTION
The Conti group additionally promised to use key
Ransomware is widely regarded as the primary method infrastructure as a target for retaliation actions in the event
for cybercriminals to monetize their activities and the that cyberattacks were conducted against Russia. Due to
biggest threat to web users. Ransomware that encrypts files, such announcement, an unidentified person who supported
often known as crypto ransomware, seeks to prevent victims Ukraine disclosed almost 60000 communications from
from accessing their systems by requesting to unlock the internal Jabber chat logs [17]. The leaker releases the stolen
data and restore the machine to its pre-attack state, you must files using recently created Twitter account [17] with the
pay a ransom. Typically, the ransom is settled using a handle @ContiLeaks [17]. Along with the sources for
cryptocurrency, which is an untraceable and anonymous further internal projects that Conti group uses to conduct
payment option. Unfortunately, since 2012, the threat posed their business. The disclosed files also contain the Conti
by this particular type of malware has escalated due to a ransomware’s source code.
lack of specialised security solutions.
We give our conclusions from our static study of Conti in this section. Two virtual machines (VMs) were used to the analysis. The
host computer features are as follows: 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8 GB of RAM. The first virtual machine was infected with Conti
and was running Windows 10. REMnux, a free Linux toolset for reverse engineering and malware investigation, was operating on
the second virtual machine. From MalShare, samples of Conti were taken.
In Flowchart 1, we have shown the work flow of our practical Static Methodologies.
Dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) are present in the malware components, as seen in figure 3, according to analysis with the
Pestudio tool. The dynamic link libraries we have found are: KERNEL32.dll, USER32.dll, WS2 32.dll. The malware calls WS2
32.dll during execution in order to get the host's network configuration information. The libraries kernel32.dll and USER32.dll are
frequently called by encryption module. This indicates two libraries process the primary Conti encryption functionality.
Since Conti uses internal APIs for various operations, we were able to get useful import information with the aid of this
Pestudio tool as well. This information will aid us in determining the functionality and capabilities of Conti. The below figure 4,
shows the details.
Now we will be analysing the File Type Identification. Knowing the file type is crucial since it allows us to determine the
destination OS and the appropriate architecture. In the below figure 6, by the help of the Pestudio tool we found out the valuable
information i.e. first-bytes-hex the value of the hexadecimal is 4D 5A in the first 2bytes, first-bytes-text i.e. MZ. And also we can
see that the file type is executable and the CPU architecture is 32-bit.
To cross check the value of file type identification we are using another static tool name Exeinfo PE tool. The below figure
7, shows the analysis part of the Exeinfo PE tool.
The PE is a Windows executable file (Portable Executable). PE can take the shape of an .exe, .dll, etc. We must examine the
file signature in order to recognize the file type and prevent false positives caused by duplicate extensions. And in here we also
got to know about that the malware file we are analysing it is unpacked.
The file header contains the file signature. The first two bytes of PE files, file signatures include the hexadecimal numbers
4D 5A or MZ (0-1). The message "This application cannot be run in DOS mode" is also seen in PE programmes. Hex 50 45
marks the start of the PE header. Keeping all these values in mind we can say that it’s represent a Portable Executable file. The
below figure 8, shows the values.
Table 2 PE Header
Number of sections 5 {.text, .rdata, .data, .rsrc, .reloc}
Signature PE
Size of Optional Header 0x00E0
Machine IMAGE_FILE_MACHINE_I386
Time date stamp 03-Feb-2021 13:43:54
Pointer to Symbol Table 0x00000000
Number of symbols 0
“.text”, “.rdata”, “.data”, “.rsrc”, “.reloc”. And the different section contains different characteristics functions. The “x” sign
denoted in the figure H, replicate that the section contains that particular characteristics function has the permissions. The “.text”
section has an executable characteristic, “.rdata” has the permissions to initialized-data, “.rdata” has two permissions writable and
initialized-data, “.rsrc” has the permission of initialized-data and lastly “.reloc” section has the permissions of both initialized-data
and uninitialized-data. And also we have got some information of the various properties of sections like raw-address, raw-size,
virtual-address and virtual-size. Based on these sections we can ensure that it is portable executable.
The test file findings are shown in Figure 10, which demonstrates that malware sample we are analysing, includes Trojan
virus. Based on it, the subsequent procedure analyses the actual assaults that took place.
Dynamic analysis refers to the technique of evaluating and testing a programme utilising real-time data execution. The
objective is to find bugs in software when it is being used, as opposed to continually analysing the code offline. So in this section
we have created a sandbox environment, where we will detonate the malware sample and observed the behaviour of the malware.
So for our sandbox we are using Windows 10 OS which will be infected by the malware and REMnux, a free Linux toolset for
reverse engineering and malware investigation was operating on the second virtual machine.
In Flowchart 2, we have shown the work flow of our practical Dynamic Methodologies.
At the conclusion of this ransom message, there is a Now to analyse the network artefacts we have used
distinct victim ID value (readme.txt). It is the str ing that is process monitoring tool to understand the behaviour of the
bounded by the delimiters —BEGIN ID— and —END ID— Conti malware while detonating it. In the figure 14, it
showing that once the malware detonated it’s tried to send
On the website for Conti's ransom note recovery the Syn packet to port 445 and the protocol its using is TCP
service, victims are urged to upload their ransom le tter. The and its process ID (PID) is 3036.
website directs the victim to a chat window where they may
After observing it for some times when the Handshake get failed then the sample_mal2.exe file infect the system with
.TIYSV extension. The actual fact is that once the malware gets the successful Handshake it will create a backdoor for hacker.
Due to the Handshake Failure the malware automatically encrypts the targeted file guiding with a ransom txt file to pay it for the
decryption key.
Based on this analysis we have spotted a suspicious file name directory-hash has been installed it’s the encryption program
file once it installed it encrypts the entire file and tries to steal some valuable data. In the figure 16, it shows that the suspicious
“directory-hash” file has installed after the malware detonation take place.
In figure 17, showing the data what the directory-hash file contains. Unknown forms of data. It’s the malicious data of the
malware.
Table 3, displays the cost of employing IOCs data to identify and secure computers from Conti ransomware virus assaults.
The hash values md5, sha1, and sha256 are used in the signature file to represent IOCs data. As shown in Table 4, we have
showcase the behavioural activities of the Conti based on our analysis.
To stop the spread of ransomware, implement and make The Conti ransomware takes use of new security flaws
sure there is strong network segmentation across where the users failed to patch, even though the bulk of
networks and functions. Establish a demilitarised zone these flaws are patchable, to elevate its privileges and move
to stop unchecked network connectivity. laterally via the victim's network. Some of the well-known
Filter network traffic to block communications coming flaws that the Conti group exploited in past assaults are
from or going out of known malicious IP addresses. included in the list below:
Enable strong spam filters to prevent phishing emails
from reaching end users. To prevent consumers from PrintNightmare:
accessing harmful websites or opening malicious With the help of the Windows Print Spooler service,
attachments, implement a user education campaign. To the attacker [17] may access files with SYSTEM rights
stop emails with executable files from getting to end thanks to the remote code execution flaw known as
users, filter them. PrintNightmare. The attacker has complete user access, so
To stop users from visiting harmful websites, they may install applications, remove files, and even create
implement a URL block list and/or allow list. new accounts.