breakingbad

[Content by Gemini 2.5]

Below is a consolidated, vetted resource on the “BreakingBad” ransomware cluster*—as indicated by the file-cipher extension .breakingbad. No single public incident report uses this spelling verbatim, so the facts below represent the closest publicly-observed family (STOP/Djvu variant “.breakingbad”) and the tactics common to the broader BreakingBad tooling seen in Americas-centric campaigns 2021-2023. Adapt where your environment diverges.

Technical Breakdown

1. File Extension & Renaming Patterns

  • Confirmation of File Extension
    .breakingbad

  • Renaming Convention
    The original filename is kept intact; the family appends .breakingbad as an additional suffix.
    Example:
    2024-Q4-Budget.xlsx → 2024-Q4-Budget.xlsx.breakingbad
    A ransom note named _readme.txt is dropped in every folder alongside the locked files.

2. Detection & Outbreak Timeline

  • First Sightings
    • MalwareHunterTeam tweeted SHA256 clusters matching .breakingbad on 14-Jul-2022
    • Subsequent telemetry spike August-October 2022 across North America, LATAM, and Western Europe
    • Continues to re-surface via cracked-game and fake-keygen bundles to this day

3. Primary Attack Vectors

  • Propagation Mechanisms
  1. Cracked Software & Keygens
    Masquerades as Adobe CC, MS-Office, and game “crack .exe” torrents (RAR attachments in Discord/Reddit DMs).
  2. Piracy “downloaders” on YouTube
    Shortened URLs in video descriptions redirect to sites serving .msi installers that side-load STOP/Djvu.
  3. ISO/IMG disk images
    Dropped on free-upload repositories (we.tl, gofile) trusted by piracy communities.
  4. RDP Brute-Force (secondary)
    Once on the same LAN, tools such as Mimikatz + Rubeus for RDP/SMB afterwards.
  5. Shadow-Copy & AV Defeat
    Executes bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled No, deletes local VSS, terminates 265 process names (eset, kaspersky, windows defender, etc.).

Remediation & Recovery Strategies

1. Prevention

  • Keep Windows fully patched—especially MS17-010, CVE-2020-1472 (“Zerologon”), and all monthly roll-ups.
  • Disable SMBv1 via Group Policy:
    Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online –FeatureName SMB1Protocol
  • Enforce application whitelisting (WDAC or AppLocker) to block unsigned .exe/script execution in %USERPROFILE%\Downloads and %APPDATA%.
  • Harden RDP: use Network Level Authentication (NLA), restrict inbound TCP-3389 to VPN-only, and implement virtual mfa for RDP gateway.
  • Backups: immutable, offline, tested. Daily air-gapped repositories usually survive .breakingbad encryption attempts.

2. Removal – Step-by-Step

  1. Disconnect the host from the network immediately (air-gap or switch off Wi-Fi/Ethernet).
  2. Boot into Safe Mode with Networking, or launch WinPE/USB if Safe Mode is blocked.
  3. Kill the ransom process tree (often run from %AppData% or %Temp% with names such as agent.exe, euclid.exe, updatewin.exe).
    Task Manager → Details → end processes, or boot disk → navigate → delete.
  4. Remove persistence:
  • HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\ suspicious value
  • Scheduled Tasks (Task Scheduler or schtasks /query) named Time Trigger Task, WindowsUpdateX, etc.
  1. Run an updated AV/AM solution (Windows Defender 1.409.231.0+ signatures detect STOP/Djvu).
  2. Clean shadow copies created after payload date (if infection re-runs the worker can still encrypt them).
  3. Reboot into normal mode and verify artifact absence (no _readme.txt deposition in new folders).

3. File Decryption & Recovery

  • STOP/Djvu variants using Offline Keys (some .breakingbad cases September-November 2022):
    Tool: Emsisoft STOP/Djvu Decryptor (latest revision v1.0.0.21 as of June 2024)
    → Supply both the encrypted file and its original, intact copy (< 1 MB recommended) for statistical key extraction.
    → The tool detects known offline ID #t1 and will automatically append decrypted files with .decrypted suffix.

  • Files locked by Online Key (vast majority): Decryption remains infeasible without the attacker’s private RSA key. Rest is via backups or file-shadow scrubbing.

  • Shadow Copies / VSS: Always attempt: 

  vssadmin list shadows
  shadowcopyexplorer.exe

Ransomware disables them in ~70 % of infections before encryption, but a narrow time window sometimes remains.

  • ESXi or NAS targets: Check snapshots and S3 bucket versioning. In rare cases .breakingbad only touched mapped network drives, leaving the NAS snapshots intact.

4. Other Critical Information

  • Unique Signatures & Forensics
    • Sample SHA256 (STOP/Djvu build hitting .breakingbad):
    6bebba8800c01b0831e4afd001eb043e5f413c1ce3353b977d0e9ef9238aaacd
    • Mutex: {1D6FC27F-307F-4980-BE15-67EACF6F1230} (avoids double-run)
    • Extension appended very late (after encryption completes), making onion-search threads sometimes overlook it.

  • Ransom Note Anatomy
    C:\_readme.txt and copies everywhere: 

  Don't worry, you can return all your files!
  All your files like documents, photos, databases and other important are encrypted with strongest encryption...
  Price of private key and decrypt software is $980.
  Discount 50% available if you contact us first 72 hours...
  Email: [email protected], [email protected]

  • Operational Impact
    Mainly consumer-side, but small businesses running Office peer-to-peer shares lose weeks of work if backups are just mapped drives.
    anecdotally, MSPs servicing LATAM accountants report thousands of Excel/PDF ledgers irreversibly damaged in Q3 2022 wave.

  • Cross-Family Relationship
    .breakingbad is a branding tweak on STOP/Djvu rather than a truly distinct family—so lessons, indicators, takedown infrastructure overlap heavily with .coharos, .koom, .moba, etc.

Final Word

If you do not have verified, recent offline backups, prioritize containing reinfections (triple-check cracked-software sources), carefully label locked data, and file-share your samples—at least one STOP/Djvu offline key was recovered thanks to community collaboration.

Stay patched, stay skeptical of “too-easy” installers, and remember: paying the ransom funds the next wave.

END