Matrix Ransomware being distributed through malvertising

Security expert Jérôme Segura from Malwarebytes has spotted that Matrix Ransomware has risen again, it is now being distributed through malvertising.

Malware researcher Jérôme Segura from Malwarebytes has discovered that Matrix Ransomware is now being distributed through malvertising campaign.

The Matrix Ransomware was first spotted in 2016, in April 2017 the threat intelligence expert Brad Duncan uncovered the EITest campaign using the RIG exploit kit to distribute this malware.

Since then the Matrix ransomware slightly disappeared from the threat landscape, but now it seems to be back and it is being delivered through malvertising campaign that triggers an Internet Explorer flaw (CVE-2016-0189) and Flash one(CVE-2015-8651).

When a computer is infected with the latest variant of the Matrix Ransomware, the malicious code will encrypt the files on the victim’s machine, scramble their file names, and append the .pyongyan001@yahoo.com extension to the file scrambled name.

The ransomware also drops a ransom note (#_#WhatWrongWithMyFiles#_#.rtf) in every folder that contains files it encrypted, then it will display a ransom screen.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – ransomware, malvertising)

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