CoinVault

Today we encountered a new type of encrypting ransomware that looks to be of the cryptographic locker family. It employs the same method of encryption and has a very similar GUI (kills VSS, increases required payment every 24hr, uses bitcoin payment, ect.).

CoinVault GUI

Here is the background that it creates – also very similar.

What’s unique about this variant that I wanted to share with you all is that this is the first Encrypting Ransomware that I’ve seen which actually gives you a free decrypt. It will let you pick any single file that you need after encryption and will decrypt it for you.

It even works too! How nice of of them.

This is a really interesting feature and it gives a good insight into what the actual decryption routine is like if you find yourself actually having to pay them. I suspect that this freebie will increase the number of people who will pay.

Webroot will catch this specific variant in real time and heuristically before any encryption takes place. We’re always on the look out for more, but just in case of new zero day variants, remember that with encrypting ransomware the best protection is going to be a good backup solution. This can be either through the cloud or offline external storage. Keeping it up to date is key so as not to lose productivity. Webroot has backup features built into our product that allow you to have directories constantly synced to the cloud. If you were to get infected by a zero day variant of encrypting ransomware you can just restore your files back as we save a snapshot history for each of your files up to ten previous copies.

About the Author

Tyler Moffitt

Sr. Security Analyst

Tyler Moffitt is a Sr. Security Analyst who stays deeply immersed within the world of malware and antimalware. He is focused on improving the customer experience through his work directly with malware samples, creating antimalware intelligence, writing blogs, and testing in-house tools.