EXPERT COMMENTS: SNAKE Ransomware Targets Organizations' Entire Corporate Networks

In response to the news that SNAKE ransomware is targeting entire corporate networks, expert offers perspective.

SNAKE Ransomware is The Next Threat Targeting Business Networks – by @LawrenceAbrams https://t.co/U6b9Pfs0zJ

— BleepingComputer (@BleepinComputer) January 8, 2020

Experts Comments

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Javvad Malik

January 09, 2020

Security Awareness Advocate

KnowBe4

Organisations should focus on the root cause on how ransomware enters the network.

Ransomware has proven to be very lucrative for cybercriminals and it appears some of their ill-gotten gains have funded advancements in ransomware tools. The Snake ransomware is one such example where criminals are trying to cause extra disruption by attempting to encrypt the entire network. Organisations should focus on the root cause on how ransomware enters the network. This is primarily through social engineering (mainly phishing), or by exploiting unpatched public-facing software. So if.....Read More

Tarik Saleh

January 10, 2020

Senior Security Engineer and Malware Researcher

DomainTools

It then proceeds to encrypt the machine’s files while skipping over important Windows folders and system files.

Security researchers have observed samples of the new SNAKE ransomware family targeting organizations’ entire corporate networks. Discovered by MalwareHunterTeam and analyzed by Vitali Kremez, SNAKE is written in Golang and contains a high level of obfuscation. Upon successful infection, the ransomware deletes the machine’s Shadow Volume Copies before terminating various processes associated with SCADA systems, network management solutions, virtual machines and other tools. It then proceeds to encrypt the machine’s files while skipping over important Windows folders and system files. As part of this process, it appends “EKANS” as a file marker along with a five-character string to the file extension of each file it encrypts. Read Less