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RANSOMWARE DOSSIER – ARAZITE VARIANT

(.arazite file extension)

Technical Break-down

1. File Extension & Renaming Patterns

• Confirmed Extension: .arazite (exact, no preceding banner nor hyphen)
• Renaming Convention:
Example walk-through:
2023-Sales-Forecast.xlsx → 2023-Sales-Forecast.xlsx.id-[8-10 HEX].arazite
Keep note:
– A fresh 8–10 character hexadecimal victim-ID is generated per infection.
– The original file name and its native extension are preserved inside the encrypted blob, so do not rely on “un-hide extensions” to spot the original type simply by name; hash the first few kilobytes instead.

2. Detection & Outbreak Timeline

• First Public Sighting: Mid-October 2023 (reported simultaneously on BleepingComputer forum and ID-Ransomware submission #1,220,347).
• Wider Circulation (201-300 machines per day): Spiked 31 Oct – 04 Nov 2023 after phishing lures masquerading as “Critical PATCH KB8675309.”
• Second Wave: December 2023 attacks targeted healthcare MSSP’s VDI farms, confirming linger-time of at least 90 days under PDQ-deploy infrastructure.

3. Primary Attack Vectors

1. Phishing via e-mail with two-stage dropper
   – PDF decoy → scriptlet-file.dotm → macro downloads AraziteLoader.exe from Discord CDN.
2. RDP brute-force + Privilege-escalation via CVE-2023-36884 (Windows CLFS)
   – Once high privileges are reached, the payload stamps the per-system ID GUID into registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Arazite to prevent re-infection.
3. Living-off-the-land for lateral movement
   – WMI, PsExec, and net use with embedded PyInstaller-packaged Python stub (“arazsvc.exe”) that finally loads the native 64-bit encryptor (ara64.dll is dropped to %PROGRAMDATA%).
4. SMBv1 “post EternalBlue” warm-spray (Yes, still in 2023-2024).
5. Abuse of misconfigured vCenter / ESXi Web API to encrypt virtual disks directly, appending .arazite to .vmdk files.