Executive Summary

• SentinelLabs has observed the first Linux variant of Cl0p ransomware.
• The ELF executable contains a flawed encryption algorithm making it possible to decrypt locked files without paying the ransom.
• SentinelLabs has published a free decryptor for this variant here.

Background

SentinelLabs observed the first ELF variant of Cl0p (also known as Clop) ransomware variant targeting Linux systems on the 26th of December 2022. The new variant is similar to the Windows variant, using the same encryption method and similar process logic.

The mentioned sample appears to be part of a bigger attack that possibly occurred around the 24th of December against a University in Colombia (sample1, sample2, sample3, sample4, sample5). On the 5th of January the cybercrime group leaked victim’s data on their onion page.

ELF Technical Analysis

The ELF Cl0p variant is developed in a similar logic to the Windows variant, though it contains small differences mostly attributed to OS differences such as API calls. It appears to be in its initial development phases as some functionalities present in the Windows versions do not currently exist in this new Linux version.

A reason for this could be that the threat actor has not needed to dedicate time and resources to improve obfuscation or evasiveness due to the fact that it is currently undetected by all 64 security engines on VirusTotal. SentinelOne Singularity detects Cl0p ransomware on both Linux and Windows devices.

Initially, the ransomware creates a new process by calling fork and exits the parent-process. The child-process sets its file mode creation mask to any permission (read, write, execute) by calling umask(0). It then calls setsid, creates a session and sets the process group ID. It tries to access root by changing the working directory to “/” (chdir(“/”)). Once the permissions are set, the ransomware proceeds encrypting other directories.

Targeted Folders & Files

While the Windows versions contain a hashing algorithm in order to avoid encrypting specific folders and files, such functionality was not observed in the Linux variant. The ELF variant targets specific folders, subfolders and all files/types.

The discovered ELF sample targets files contained in the following directories for encryption, though we do not exclude the possibility of future versions including more directories.

Encryption Flaw

Windows versions of Cl0p ransomware use a Mersenne Twister PRNG (MT19937) to generate a 0x75 bytes size RC4 key for each file. This key is then validated (checks if the first five bytes are NULL) and used for file encryption. Then, by using the RSA public key, it encrypts the generated RC4 key and stores it to $filename.$clop_extension. Victims who pay the ransom demand receive a decryptor which decrypts the generated Cl0p file using the RSA private key, retrieves the generated RC4 key, and then decrypts the encrypted file.

This core functionality is missing in the Linux variant. Instead, we discovered a flawed ransomware-encryption logic which makes it possible to retrieve the original files without paying for a decryptor.

The Linux variant contains a hardcoded RC4 “master-key” which, during the execution of the main function, is copied into the global variable szKeyKey.

Sample’s RC4 “master-key”:

Jfkdskfku2ir32y7432uroduw8y7318i9018urewfdsZ2Oaifwuieh~~cudsffdsd

During the file encryption phase, the ransomware – similar to the Windows version – generates a 0x75 bytes size RC4 key, with the use of a lookup table and a PRNG byte. This generated RC4 key is used to encrypt the mappedAddress and write it back to the file.

Then by using the RC4 “master-key” the ransomware encrypts the generated RC4 key and stores it to $filename.$clop_extension. By using a symmetric algorithm (second RC4) to “encrypt” the file’s RC4 key, we were able to take advantage of this flaw and decrypt Cl0p-ELF encrypted files.

Cl0p-ELF Decryption Logic:

1. Retrieve RC4 “master-key”.
2. Read all $filename.$clop_extension.
3. Decrypt with RC4 using the RC4 “master-key”, the generated RC4 key.
4. Decrypt $filename with RC4 using the generated RC4 key.
5. Write decrypted to $filename.

We packed all this logic into the following Python script.

Cl0p File-Key Creation Flaw

The 0x75 bytes size PRNG RC4 key is encrypted with RC4 using the RC4 “master-key”. The encrypted RC4 output is 0x75 bytes size, though writes 0x100 bytes into the created Cl0p key $filename.$clop_extension. This results in writing memory data to the file and more specifically stack variables.

This flaw provides some information regarding the file before encryption. This includes:

• File fstat64 result
  • total size, in bytes, file size (st_size)
  • time of last status change, exact time of file encryption (st_ctime)
  • and more forensics information regarding the file before the encryption.
• Size of buffer for file encryption (with check of >= 0x5f5e100 )
• RC4 “master-key” size
• RC4 PRNG key size

struct  clopelfkeyfile  {
	byte encr_rc4key[117]; // encrypted RC4 PRNG key, size 0x75 bytes
	stat fdstat; // stat(fd, &fdstat), size 0x58 bytes
	long fdid; // file node unique id, size 0x8 bytes
	int fd; // file descriptor, size 0x4 bytes
	int fdmappedaddr; // file mapped address, size 0x4 bytes
	off_t fdsize; // file size, size 0x8 bytes
	int rc4_msize; // RC4 "master-key" size, size 0x4 bytes
	long rc4_fsize; // RC4 PRNG key size, size 0x8 bytes
	int fdnameaddr; // filename string address, size 0x4 bytes
	int frameaddr; // frame pointer address, size 0x4 bytes
	int retaddr; // function return address, size 0x4 bytes
	byte fdpathaddr[3]; // part of filepath strings address, size 0x3 bytes
}

Developed Functions & Names

In ELF binaries the .symtab, Symbol Table Section, holds information needed to locate and relocate a program’s symbolic definitions and references, allowing us to retrieve function and global variable names.

Differences to Windows Variant

Rather than simply port the Windows version of Cl0p directly, the authors have chosen to build bespoke Linux payloads.  We understand this to be the primary reason for the lack of feature parity between the new Linux version and the far more established Windows variant.

SentinelLabs expects future versions of the Linux variant to start eliminating those differences and for each updated functionality to be applied in both variants simultaneously.

Some of the differences worth highlighting are detailed below:

Ransom Notes

The Linux variant of Clop ransomware drops a ransom note on victim machines with a .txt format.

This differs somewhat from the Windows .rtf ransom note, although both use the email addresses [email protected][.]com and [email protected][.]com as ways for victims to contact the attackers.

Conclusion

Over the last twelve months or so we have continued to observe the increased targeting of multiple platforms by individual ransomware operators or variants. The discovery of an ELF-variant of Cl0p adds to the growing list of the likes of Hive, Qilin, Snake, Smaug, Qyick and numerous others.

We know that Cl0p operations have shown little if no slow-down since the disruption in June 2021. While the Linux-flavored variation of Cl0p is, at this time, in its infancy, its development and the almost ubiquitous use of Linux in servers and cloud workloads suggests that defenders should expect to see more Linux-targeted ransomware campaigns going forward.

SentinelLabs continues to monitor the activity associated with Cl0p. SentinelOne Singularity protects against malicious artifacts and behaviors associated with Cl0p attacks including the ELF variant described in this post.

Indicators of Compromise

YARA Rule

rule ClopELF
{
    meta:
        author = "@Tera0017/@SentinelLabs"
        description = "Temp Clop ELF variant yara rule based on $hash"
        reference = "https://s1.ai/Clop-ELF”
        hash = "09d6dab9b70a74f61c41eaa485b37de9a40c86b6d2eae7413db11b4e6a8256ef"
    strings:
        $code1 = {C7 45 ?? 00 E1 F5 05}
        $code2 = {81 7D ?? 00 E1 F5 05}
        $code3 = {C7 44 24 ?? 75 00 00 00}
        $code4 = {C7 44 24 ?? 80 01 00 00}
        $code5 = {C7 00 2E [3] C7 40 04}
        $code6 = {25 00 F0 00 00 3D 00 40 00 00}
        $code7 = {C7 44 24 04 [4] C7 04 24 [4] E8 [4] C7 04 24 FF FF FF FF E8 [4] C9 C3}
    condition:
        uint32(0) == 0x464c457f and all of them
}