Fuckunicorn ransomware targets Italy in COVID-19 lures

A new piece of ransomware dubbed FuckUnicorn it targeting Italy by tricking victims into downloading a fake COVID-19 contact tracing app.

A new ransomware dubbed FuckUnicorn has been targeting computers in Italy by tricking victims into downloading a fake contact tracing app, named Immuni, that promises to provide real-time updates for the COVID-19 outbreak.

The COVID-19-themed campaign use messages that pretend to be sent by the Italian Pharmacist Federation (FOFI).

The Italian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) from the AgID Agency released an advisory about this threat.

Attackers attempt to take advantage of the interest on the contact tracing app Immuni that was chosen by the Italian government to trace the evolution of the pandemic in the country.

The new ransomware was first spotted by the malware researcher JamesWT_MHT that shared samples with the malware community.

Email messages used as lure are written in Italian and informs citizens of the release of a beta release of the Immuni app for PC.

The campaign targeted pharmacies, universities, doctors, and other entities involved in the fight against COVID-19 outbreak.

To trick victims into downloading the malicious app, threat actors set up a malicious domain that clones the content of the legitimate site of the Federazione Ordini Farmacisti Italiani (FOFI.it).

The attackers registered the “fofl.it,“ domain to trick victims.

The content of the email includes download links and contact information that combines email addresses from the attacker and FOFI.

Upon executing the malware it displays a fake Coronavirus Map from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

In the background the FuckUnicorn starts encrypting data on the system, it encrypts the files in certain paths (/Desktop, /Links, /Contacts, /Documents, /Downloads, /Pictures, /Music, /OneDrive, /Saved Games, /Favorites, /Searches, and /Videos) with these extensions:

.Txt, .jar, .exe, .dat, .contact, .settings, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx, .odt, .jpg, .png, .csv,. py, .sql, .mdb, .sln, .php, .asp, .aspx, .html, .htm, .xml, .psd, .pdf, .dll, .c, .cs, .mp3, .mp4, .f3d, .dwg, .cpp, .zip, .rar, .mov, .rtf, .bmp, .mkv, .avi, .apk, .lnk, .iso, .7-zip, .ace, .arj, .bz2, .cab, .gzip, .lzh, .tar, .uue, .xz, .z, .001, .mpeg, .mp3, .mpg, .core, .crproj, .pdb, .ico, .pas , .db, .torrent "

The malicious code adds the “.fuckunicornhtrhrtjrjy” extensions to names of encrypted files.

The FuckUnicorn drops a ransom note written in Italian that asks victims to pay EUR 300, worth of Bitcoin, in three days or the data would be lost.

The email address in the ransom note is invalid making it impossible to send the attacker the payment proof.

At the time, there are no transactions recorded for the wallet included in the ransom note.

The good news for the victims is that CERT-AgID discovered that the password for encrypting the files is sent in clear text to the attacker, this means that it can be retrieved from the network traffic.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – FuckUnicorn, hacking)

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