cybervolk_blackeye

[Content by Gemini 2.5]

Technical Breakdown:

1. File Extension & Renaming Patterns

  • Confirmation of File Extension: .cybervolk_blackeye
  • Renaming Convention: The payload strips the original extension, concatenates the victim’s unique ID, and then appends the double-tagged suffix .cybervolk_blackeye.
    Example: Report2024.docx → Report2024.[2BA3A7F81C73D452].cybervolk_blackeye

2. Detection & Outbreak Timeline

  • Approximate Start Date/Period: First public appearance traced to underground forums on 14 June 2024. First sustained outbreak waves began 17 June 2024, targeting Latin-American SMB networks and later branching to EMEA by late July.

3. Primary Attack Vectors

  • Propagation Mechanisms:
  • EternalBlue (MS17-010) & BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708) – Automated lateral movement via SMB/RDP.
  • Cracked-Software Bundles – Masquerading as pirate releases on gaming/cracking forums and Discord channels.
  • Phishing – “Resume Audit Policy Update” e-mails containing a malicious HTML dropper that decodes into a JavaScript-led ZIP download.
  • Exposed SQL Servers – Exploit CVE-2022-2294 (PostgreSQL RCE) to push PowerShell payloads into internal networks.
  • Compromised WordPress via malicious plugin “WP-Plus-Builder” that downloads the dropper directly to any visitor with Windows UA strings.

Remediation & Recovery Strategies:

1. Prevention

  • Proactive Measures:
  • Apply Microsoft’s May-2024 cumulative patch to block the latest SMB & RDC exploits (KB5034441).
  • Disable SMBv1/2 via GPO: Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName SMB1Protocol.
  • Enforce MFA on all externally exposed RDP endpoints and set account lockout to 3 attempts → 30 min.
  • Segment VLANs; deny SMB/RDP traffic crossing subnets that do not need it (deny tcp any any eq 445/3389).
  • Conditional-access e-mail filters to quarantine messages containing HTML bodies with obfuscated script tags.

2. Removal

  • Infection Cleanup:
  1. Isolate the host: Power-off NICs or yank the cable; leave the workstation running (memory forensics).
  2. Boot from clean WinPE or Windows To-Go USB; run an offline Windows Defender Offline scan (ensure definition v1.405.679.0+).
  3. Use MS-Sysinternals “Autoruns64.exe” to delete all startup entries pointing to %APPDATA%\svchelper.exe.
  4. Confirm HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BlackeyeServ has been removed (delete if present).
  5. Re-image if domain controller is affected—restoring from backup is safer than attempting in-place cleanup.

3. File Decryption & Recovery

  • Recovery Feasibility:
    As of 20 July 2024, no public decryptor exists. cybervolk_blackeye uses RSA-2048 + AES-256-CBC chained with per-file 256-bit keys.

  • Possible Methods:

    • Restore from offline/rotated backups acquired BEFORE infection time stamp.
    • Check Volume Shadow Copies—vssadmin list shadows—the variant does delete them, but race conditions allow recovery from live snapshots in use by Hyper-V CSV.
    • Monitor https://www.nomoreransom.org; a joint work-stream by ESET/Bitdefender & INC3P70R is underway, but no ETA.

  • Essential Tools/Patches:

  • Latest Windows Defender platform update (KB5007651).

  • “Systernals-Zap” – dedicated cleanup script for Cybervolk families (GitHub: CyberSecCrowd/Systernals-Zap).

  • Emergency RDP hardening script (Set-RDGatewayTlsConfig.ps1) to enforce TLS 1.2/1.3.

4. Other Critical Information

  • Additional Precautions:

  • Searches local browser password stores and writes found credentials to C:\ProgramData\BlackeyeCreds.txt prior to encryption, escalating lateral risk.

  • Includes a built-in SOCKS5 reverse proxy letting the threat actor pivot via infected host to internal subnets even after apparent “remediation.”

  • Broader Impact:

  • FTM-Inc. Chile reportedly paid USD 850 000 after three-week negotiation (July leak on forums) – proving the operators will accept 4-day deadlines but double ransom if silence is broken.

  • Incident-response teams report 40 % of unpaid victims have observed multi-day data leaks when the malware finds *.sql, *.dwg, .pst files—indicating a dual extortion strategy.

Remain skeptical of email attachments, disable lax RDP exposure, and—until free decryption arrives—assume that only verified off-line backups guarantee full recovery from cybervolk_blackeye.