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Cisco Talos has confirmed the creation of a new decryptor key for victims of the Babuk Tortilla ransomware variant.
The keys will be added to a generic Babuk decryptor created by Avast Threat Labs. This will allow users to download a single decryptor containing all current Babuk keys.
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Targeting Babuk Ransomware Variations:
Babuk ransomware became well-known in 2021 due to several major attacks on industries like manufacturing and law enforcement.
The ransomware is very advanced and can work on different devices, such as Windows and ARM for Linux.
Babuk encrypts the victim’s machine and can also stop the system backup and delete the shadow copies, making recovery harder.
Babuk’s source code was leaked in September 2021 on an underground forum. This allowed several threat actors to create different versions of the strain.
Cisco set out ransomware families that have leveraged Babuk:
Rook – December 2021
Night Sky – January 2022
Pandora – March 2022
Nokoyawa Cheerscrypt – May 2022
AstraLocker 2.0 – June 2022
ESXiArgs – February 2023
Rorschach RTM Locker RA Group – April 2023
Cisco Talos observed Tortilla targeting vulnerable Microsoft Exchange servers to exploit the ProxyShell vulnerability and deploy the Babuk ransomware in October 2021.
Dutch Police used information from Cisco Talos to find and arrest the person responsible for the Tortilla malware.
Talos got the decryptor from Tortilla and shared the decryption key with Avast Threat Labs. Avast had already developed a generic decryptor for several other Babuk variants.
Talos suspects that this decryptor was made using the leaked Babuk source code and generator. The Tortilla actor, on the other hand, used only one key pair to target all their victims, even though attackers can create multiple key pairs for each campaign.
The company extracted the private key from the decryptor and added it to the Avast Babuk decryptor. They did this instead of sharing any executable code created by Tortilla. This is because the code could be untrusted and pose a risk to production environments.
How Can Victims Recover Encrypted Files:
Victims of Tortilla ransomware attacks can now download the updated version of the Babuk decryptor from a trusted software website. This decryptor is designed to enable users to recover their files very quickly and easily.
“Its simple user interface allows even users with minimal experience in ransomware recovery to easily understand its usage and purpose,” Talos wrote in a blog on January 9, 2024.
Several decryptors have recently been released to assist victims of well-known ransomware groups.
Security Research Labs released tools to recover files encrypted by the Black Basta ransomware. The FBI also developed a decryption tool for the infamous BlackCat group after taking legal action.
