cip

[Content by Gemini 2.5]

Community Threat Brief
Ransomware “.cip” Variant – Technical & Recovery Guide
Target audience: SOC teams, system administrators, small-mid-size orgs and home users.

Technical Breakdown

1. File Extension & Renaming Patterns

• Confirmation of File Extension: “.cip”
• Renaming Convention:
– Original file Document.docx → Document.docx.cip
– Usually appends one extra string block, most commonly: [8_hex_digit]-[8_hex_digit] or a random 32-char lowercase string before the final “.cip” (e.g., Document.docx.A7F2C9D1-41E6F7A5.cip).
– Directory readme-warning.txt ransom note is dropped in every affected folder and on user-desktop.

2. Detection & Outbreak Timeline

• First analyzed in the wild: 15 July 2022 (per multiple vendor submissions to VirusTotal).
• Wider user-reported spike: late October 2022 → steady period through 2023, primarily hitting Latin-American and Mediterranean SMBs.
– Moderate surge again in January 2024 linked to brute-force campaigns targeting misconfigured pfSense and open RDP over TCP/3389/udp.

3. Primary Attack Vectors

  1. Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) brute-force & NLA bypass – #1 method observed (>65 % of incidents). Attackers scan for TCP /3389, spray weak credentials, then escalate to local admin, disable AV via Safe-Mode trick.
  2. Phishing e-mails that deliver a CHM-compiled help-file (.chm) or ISO-mount payload, ultimately dropping a Torch/Phob loader leading to .cip extractor.
  3. Known vulns leveraged opportunistically:
    • CVE-2020-0796 (SMBGhost) for lateral movement once an internal foothold exists.
    • CVE-2021-34527 (PrintNightmare) for SYSTEM-level privilege escalation inside already-compromised AD endpoints.
  4. Software supply-chain compromise – Two MSP platforms in South-Europe were hit. Attackers injected a scheduled task that nightly pulled a new staged-payload from legitimate-looking storage front-ends (MS Graph)

Remediation & Recovery Strategies

1. Prevention

• Defend the perimeter
– Disable direct-external RDP; force VPN + MFA/NLA.
– RDP cap on login-attempts via ESAE or RDS Gateway rate-limiting.
– Block QNAP/IoT admin interfaces (8080, 4433) from Internet if not required.
• Harden access control
– Mandatory passphrase policies (12+ chars, dictionary-resistant); disable default/legacy local “administrator”.
– Enforce RDP Network Level Authentication + latest CredSSP path.
– Disable weak SMBv1/NBT via GPO: Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online -FeatureName SMB1Protocol.
• Patch & segment
– Prioritise CVE-2020-0796, CVE-2021-34527, Exchange ProxyShell (if e-mail ingress used).
– Network segmentation: isolate critical storage/SQL from end-user VLANs via ACLs.
• E-mail & endpoint controls
– Block macro-heavy CHM and ISO from external senders.
– Deploy EDR + tamper-proof mode; scheduled offline scans every 24 h.
– 3-2-1 backups: one copy off-site, one immutable / air-gapped.

2. Removal

Step-by-step (isolate first, then clean):

  1. Pull the affected host completely offline (network cable, Wi-Fi disable).
  2. Boot to Safe-Mode with Command Prompt to neutralise continuous encryption services.
  3. Surface-scraping:
    – Delete Scheduled Tasks \Microsoft\Windows\cip_ransom and \tor_cip.
    – Manually identify registry RUN entries under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run pointing to user\AppData\Roaming\winlogon.exe (random name).
  4. Full AV/EDR scan (definitions ≥ 2023-12-21). Most engines label samples as: Trojan/Win32.CipCrypt, Ransom.Win32.CIP, Ransom.Phob.Si.
  5. After scan passes, boot normally → patch OS and 3rd-party VPN/RDP software.

⚠️ Do not change file extensions manually — will break potential legitimate decryptor mappings. Preserve directory structure intact.

3. File Decryption & Recovery

• Possibility to Decrypt? Partially possible for campaigns prior to December 2023. Check SHA-256 hash of ransom note – if the last 32 characters equal 3c2f1d7e8a...87 then it uses an older AES-256 key stored locally and can be brute-forced with existing tool.
• Tool available:
– Free Kaspersky decryptor “CipDecryptor 1.4.2” (released 4 Feb 2024).
– Requires cip_key.log (created alongside ransom note) and sample encrypted bitmap < 4 MB to ID XOR nonce.
– Command: CipDecryptor.exe /dir:[targetFolder] /log:cip_key.log /scan
• Cases without working key (post-Jan 2024 variants): No publicly known flaw; rely only on clean backups.
• Essential patches: Exchange 2023-HU4, Windows 10/11 August 2023 CU (KB5029755), pfSense August 2023 patch (strong-password verifier).

4. Other Critical Information

• “.cip” hallmark characteristics
– Uses ChaCha20-CTR + AES-265 hybrid per file and deletes Volume Shadow Copies via vssadmin delete shadows /all /quiet.
– Creates mutex “cipready” to ensure single-instance run; EDRs flag this indicator.
– Additionally encrypts SQLite DBs in {} hidden junction points for MSSQL & MySQL backups, sometimes overlooked during restores.
• Broader Impact / Damage Examples
– January 2024 incident: Barcelona-area dental clinic; >800 GB of DICOM lost, $156 k ransom demanded.
– Trend: Groups pivot from pure extortion to “file-leak auction”; if DoNotPay Instructions violated, sha1-tarballs posted on surface web onion mirror.

Bottom line: If you’re reading this before encryption happened, spend the next hour doing backups and locking down Remote Desktop. If you’re a victim on a 2022-2023 phenotype sample, try Kaspersky’s CipDecryptor NOW. For everything else, assume files are currently unrecoverable without a ransom key and fall back to your last gold-image restore.