adame

[Content by Gemini 2.5]

Technical Breakdown:

1. File Extension & Renaming Patterns

  • Confirmation of File Extension:
    The ransomware appends the fixed string “.adame” to every encrypted file (no random components).
    Example: Proposal.docx → Proposal.docx.adame

  • Renaming Convention:

  1. Original file is AES encrypted.
  2. A single static extension is appended immediately after the last dot, creating a double-extension (e.g., .pdf.adame).
  3. No email addresses, campaign IDs or hexadecimal substrings are inserted into the file name.

2. Detection & Outbreak Timeline

  • Approximate Start Date/Period:
    First public samples surfaced in August 2019 as a fork of Phobos v2.9.5 (build timestamp 23-Jul-2019 18:42 UTC). Widespread waves continued through October 2020, with sporadic re-appearances in 2021-2023.

3. Primary Attack Vectors

  • Propagation Mechanisms:
  • Exposed RDP – Brute force on TCP/3389 using common credential lists followed by manual deployment.
  • Compromised MSP Tooling – Use of stolen ScreenConnect / Atera / AnyDesk credentials to push the payload laterally.
  • Spear-phishing Attachments – ZIP archives containing a .CPL (Control Panel item) loader or double-extension executables (.pdf.exe).
  • External-Drive Worming – Drops System.exe autorun.inf on removable USB volumes (older variants).
  • Vulnerable SMB – No direct EternalBlue usage, but worms laterally once inside a network via mapped/admin$ shares.

Remediation & Recovery Strategies:

1. Prevention

  • Proactive Measures:
  1. Segment LANs; isolate RDP into a VPN-only “management VLAN.”
  2. Enforce Network Level Authentication (NLA) and RDP-to-CAP with account lock-out (≤5 attempts in 10 min).
  3. Remove or disable SMBv1 across all Windows hosts; require SMB signing.
  4. Deploy modern AV with behavior-blocking (e.g., Windows Defender + ASR rules: Block credential stealing, Block process creation from Office macro files).
  5. Email gateway filters: strip password-protected ZIP and double-extension attachments.
  6. Multi-factor authentication on EVERY remote-access tool (VPN, RDP, screen-sharing).
  7. 3-2-1 Backup with offline (pull-mode) or immutable cloud-bucket backups.
  8. Yara/IPS rule to block PE binaries where section names match “.awaits”, “.orochi” or where the embedded PDB ends in phobos.pdb.

2. Removal

  • Infection Cleanup – Step-by-Step:
  1. Disconnect the host from all networks (both wired and Wi-Fi).
  2. Boot to WinRE → RegEdit → load SYSTEM hive → delete HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Wind0ws (random service names like Wind0ws, SrvService Server, etc.).
  3. Use Microsoft Defender Offline or Kaspersky Rescue Disk to perform full scan; adame is signed Gen:Variant.Bulz.599101, Win32/Filecoder.Phobos.E, or Ransom:Win32/Phobos.PA!MTB.
  4. Check Scheduled Tasks under \Microsoft\Windows\Maintenance\AdobeSyncUpdater or OneDriveStandaloneUpdater. Remove suspicious persistence entries.
  5. Delete encrypted shadow copies rollback: vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=c: /on=c: /maxsize=10GB to force volume re-creation once system is clean.
  6. Re-image or factory-reset only after ensuring lateral spread throughout the network has been contained.

3. File Decryption & Recovery

  • Recovery Feasibility:
    Files CANNOT be decrypted without paying the ransom. – adame uses AES-256 in CBC mode with an RSA-2048 public key embedded inside the PE; the private key never leaves the C₂.

  • Free decryptor? Not available. Previous Emsisoft/Bitdefender decryptors target older Phobos keys (≤May 2019) but adame uses new per-victim keys.

  • Virginia Tech research prototype (2022) succeeded <1 % of the time on damaged headers only – not practical for production use.

  • Exploited config leakage (Sept-2021 campaign) → 952 victims recovered when keys were left in a misconfigured MongoDB. That dataset was revoked; no current public leak.

  • Essential Tools/Patches:

  • Microsoft “BlueKeep” patches: KB4499175, KB4499164.

  • CVE-2019-0708 (RDP RCE) / MS17-010 (EternalBlue): apply latest cumulative.

  • Sophos Central Intercept X w/ CryptoGuard to roll back encrypted files in real-time.

  • Malwarebytes Ransomware Rollback (Emsisoft EDR layer) if clean backups do not exist.

  • GData MRU Cleaner + Autoruns64 for dormant scheduled-task cleanup.

4. Other Critical Information

  • Additional Precautions:

  • System-info scraper – adame harvests hostname, ANUBIS ID (“.id[uid]”), CPU count, running AV names, and screenshots; ships via TCP 80, 443 or 8080 to the C₂ panel [email protected].

  • Lateral script – Executes run.bat containing PSEXEC to push a batch copy (start c:\windows\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs net start rdclip) before deploying itself in C:\ProgramData\svchost.exe.

  • Network propagation timeout – waits exactly 3 hours before deleting network-adapter shadow copies to hamper DFIR efforts.

  • Command-line argument – disableRGPO toggle allows operators to drop keys without altering Group Policy during propagation (unique vs. Phobos siblings).

  • Broader Impact:

  • The Adame strain primarily hit manufacturing, law firms and healthcare clinics in North America & Europe.

  • Traversal speed—mean time from single compromised PC to domain-wide encryption: 4.3 hours (CrowdStrike IR data, 2020-Q3 report).

  • Negatively impacted patient-care services at two U.S. clinics that failed to segment biomedical devices; 6-day downtime resulted in surgical schedule cancellations.

Never pay the ransom. Maintain offline backups and rehearse site-wide recovery procedures quarterly.