Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Walmart Dissects New ‘Sugar’ Ransomware

The cyber threat team at retail giant Walmart has dissected a new ransomware family dubbed Sugar, which is available to cybercriminals as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS).

The cyber threat team at retail giant Walmart has dissected a new ransomware family dubbed Sugar, which is available to cybercriminals as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS).

The Sugar ransomware family is written in Delphi and borrows objects from other ransomware families out there. It was initially spotted in November 2021, but hasn’t been detailed before.

Unlike the most prevalent ransomware families out there, Sugar mainly targets individual computers rather than enterprise networks, but that doesn’t make it less dangerous, especially since it is offered as a RaaS.

According to Walmart, one of the most interesting features of Sugar is its crypter. Not only does it employ a modified version of the RC4 encryption, but code from the crypter is being reused in the ransomware itself.

Because of that, Walmart believes that either both the Sugar ransomware and its crypter are the work of the same developer, or the crypter is being offered to affiliates as part of the service.

[READ: Sophisticated Noberus Ransomware First to Be Coded in Rust]

“The malware is written in Delphi but the interesting part […] was the reuse of the same routine from the crypter as part of the string decoding in the malware, this would lead us to believe that they have the same dev and the crypter is probably part of the build process or some service the main actor offers to their affiliates,” Walmart’s researchers note.

The ransomware’s analysis also brought to light similarities with the ransom note employed by REvil ransomware operators – but also differences and misspellings – and similarities between Sugar’s decryptor page and that of Cl0p.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Furthermore, Walmart’s security researchers found similarities with GPLib, a library that contains procedures and functions for encryption and decryption operations.

“The file encryption piece for samples we analyzed appears to be using the SCOP encryption algorithm,” they note.

With major ransomware operations announcing shutdowns (such as BlackMatter) or being the target of law enforcement actions (REvil), new RaaS operations have a lot of space to prosper and even become established threats.

Related: OT Data Stolen by Ransomware Gangs Can Facilitate Cyber-Physical Attacks

Related: ‘Sabbath’ Ransomware Operators Target Critical Infrastructure

Related: Recent Ransomware Trends Reinforce the Need for Cyber Hygiene, Collaboration

Written By

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join this event as we dive into threat hunting tools and frameworks, and explore value of threat intelligence data in the defender’s security stack.

Register

Learn how integrating BAS and Automated Penetration Testing empowers security teams to quickly identify and validate threats, enabling prompt response and remediation.

Register

People on the Move

DARPA veteran Dan Kaufman has joined Badge as SVP, AI and Cybersecurity.

Kelly Shortridge has been promoted to VP of Security Products at Fastly.

After the passing of Amit Yoran, Tenable has appointed Steve Vintz and Mark Thurmond as co-CEOs.

More People On The Move

Expert Insights

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest cybersecurity news, threats, and expert insights. Unsubscribe at any time.