• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

PyPI maintainers alert users to email verification phishing attack

 | 

FBI seizes 20 BTC from Chaos Ransomware affiliate targeting Texas firms

 | 

Critical SAP flaw exploited to launch Auto-Color Malware attack on U.S. company

 | 

Orange reports major cyberattack, warns of service disruptions

 | 

Hackers leak images and comments from women dating safety app Tea

 | 

Pro-Ukraine hacktivists claim cyberattack on Russian Airline Aeroflot that caused the cancellation of +100 flights

 | 

Seychelles Commercial Bank Reported Cybersecurity Incident

 | 

Microsoft uncovers macOS flaw allowing bypass TCC protections and exposing sensitive data

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Cisco ISE and PaperCut NG/MF flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Critical WordPress Post SMTP plugin flaw exposes 200K+ sites to full takeover

 | 

Scattered Spider targets VMware ESXi in using social engineering

 | 

China-linked group Fire Ant exploits VMware and F5 flaws since early 2025

 | 

Allianz Life data breach exposed the data of most of its 1.4M customers

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Law enforcement operations seized BlackSuit ransomware gang’s darknet sites

 | 

Arizona woman sentenced for aiding North Korea in U.S. IT job fraud scheme

 | 

Operation CargoTalon targets Russia’s aerospace with EAGLET malware,

 | 

Unpatched flaw in EoL LG LNV5110R cameras lets hackers gain Admin access

 | 

Koske, a new AI-Generated Linux malware appears in the threat landscape

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Cyber Crime
  • Malware
  • Vice Society ransomware gang is using a custom locker

Vice Society ransomware gang is using a custom locker

Pierluigi Paganini December 22, 2022

The Vice Society ransomware group has adopted new custom ransomware, with a strong encryption scheme, in recent intrusions.

SentinelOne researchers discovered that the Vice Society ransomware gang has started using a custom ransomware that implements a robust encryption scheme, using NTRUEncrypt and ChaCha20-Poly1305 algorithms.

Vice Society ransomware has been active since June 2021, it is considered by researchers a spin-off of the HelloKitty ransomware, the malware targets both Windows and Linux systems primarily belonging to small or midsize victims.

This group focuses on public school districts and other educational institutions, like other ransomware gangs it implements a double extortion model and publishes data stolen from the victims on a data leak site.

The new variant, dubbed “PolyVice”, was used in a recent attack and appended the file extension “.ViceSociety” to all encrypted files. The malware dropped ransom notes with the file name “AllYFilesAE” in each encrypted directory.

The researchers speculate the ransomware was in the early stages of development, they found debugging messages in the code.

SentinelOne noticed a significant overlap with the process implemented in the RedAlert ransomware, a circumstance that suggests that both variants were developed by the same threat actor.

Further investigation also revealed that codebase for the Vice Society Windows payload has been used to build custom-branded payloads for other ransomware groups, such as “Chily” and “SunnyDay.”

Vice Society ransomware

“We assess it’s likely that a previously unknown developer or group of developers with specialized expertise in ransomware development is selling custom-branded ransomware payloads to multiple groups. The details embedded in these payloads make it highly unlikely that Vice Society, SunnyDay, and Chily ransomware are operated by the same group.” continues the report. “The delivery method for this “Locker as a Service” is unclear, but the code design suggests the ransomware developer provides a builder that enables buyers to independently generate any number of lockers/decryptors by binary patching a template payload.”

Buyers can customize their ransomware without revealing any source code and can generate branded payloads to run their own RaaS programs.

The encryption scheme used by PolyVice combines asymmetric and symmetric encryption to securely encrypt files. It leverages a quantum-resistant NTRUEncrypt algorithm for asymmetric encryption, and an open source implementation of the ChaCha20-Poly1305 algorithm for symmetric encryption.

The PolyVice locker implement a multi-threading approach to parallelize the encryption process.

The malware uses the CreateThread function to spawn multiple workers and relies on a WaitForMultipleObject call to synchronize with the main thread,

The main thread and the worker threads use an I/O Completion Port to exchange data.

PolyVice worker reads the file content to determine the speed optimizations to apply which depend on the file size. The PolyVice ransomware applies intermittent encryption selectively.

  • Files smaller than 5MB are fully encrypted.
  • Files with a size between 5MB and 100MB are partially encrypted:
    • A total of 5MB of content is encrypted by splitting them into 2 chunks of 2.5MB. First chunk from the top and the second chunk from the bottom of the file.
  • Files bigger than 100MB are partially encrypted:
    • A total of 25MB of content is encrypted in intermittent mode split into 10 chunks of 2.5MB distributed every 10% of the file size.

“The adoption of the PolyVice Ransomware variant has further strengthened their ransomware campaigns, enabling them to quickly and effectively encrypt victims’ data using a robust encryption scheme.” concludes the report. “The ransomware ecosystem is constantly evolving, with the trend of hyperspecialization and outsourcing continuously growing.”

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

[adrotate banner=”9″][adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Vice Society ransomware)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

Cybercrime hacking news information security news IT Information Security malware Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Security News Vice Society ransomware

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 30, 2025
PyPI maintainers alert users to email verification phishing attack
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 30, 2025
FBI seizes 20 BTC from Chaos Ransomware affiliate targeting Texas firms
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    PyPI maintainers alert users to email verification phishing attack

    Hacking / July 30, 2025

    FBI seizes 20 BTC from Chaos Ransomware affiliate targeting Texas firms

    Cyber Crime / July 30, 2025

    Critical SAP flaw exploited to launch Auto-Color Malware attack on U.S. company

    Malware / July 30, 2025

    Orange reports major cyberattack, warns of service disruptions

    Security / July 29, 2025

    Hackers leak images and comments from women dating safety app Tea

    Data Breach / July 29, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT