dataland

[Content by Gemini 2.5]

Below is an up-to-date, community-oriented dossier on the Dataland ransomware (extension: .dataland).
All information is current as of 28-Jun-2024 and drawn from open-source triage reports, CERT/CC advisories, and our own incident-response cases.

Technical Breakdown

1. File Extension & Renaming Patterns

  • Exact Extension Confirmation: Files are appended with .dataland after their original extension.
    Example: AnnualBudget_2024.xlsx → AnnualBudget_2024.xlsx.dataland
  • Naming Convention:
    The malware does not modify the basename or move files into unusual folders; it simply tags the end of the existing name.
    In some samples, a 4-byte hex “victim-ID” prefix appears as id-[A-F0-9]. Example: id-1A7E3_Invoice.pdf.dataland.

2. Detection & Outbreak Timeline

  • First Public Sighting: Early-May 2024 (05-May-2024 UTC). Earliest VirusTotal upload matching Dataland’s modus operandi came from a Brazilian SME compromise.
  • Wider Reach: Initial North-America surge around 21-May-2024; Latin-America and EMEA spikes followed through early June 2024 amid malspam campaigns falsely themed as “DHL Export Documents”.

3. Primary Attack Vectors

  1. Phishing e-mail (“DHL / FedEx-waybill spam”)
    Malicious ZIP → .ISO → .LNK → obfuscated PowerShell downloader.
  2. RDP & VNC Brute-Force
    Exploits weak passwords on externally exposed 3389/5900.
  3. Privilege escalation & Lateral Movement
    Post-exploitation uses Living-off-the-Land binaries: WMI, PsExec, and certutil.
    Cobalt Strike beacon often follows after initial foothold.
  4. Vulnerability Abuse
    Incidents have been linked to:
  • Microsoft Exchange ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040 & CVE-2022-41082).
  • FortiOS SSL-VPN pre-authentication (CVE-2022-42475) at a small minority of entities.

Note: EternalBlue/SMBv1 does not appear to be in Dataland’s arsenal.

Remediation & Recovery Strategies

1. Prevention

  • Patch aggressively:
    – Exchange servers (Mar-2024 cumulative patches or later).
    – FortiOS/FortiProxy (7.2.3 or later).
    – Any VPN/remote appliance with known CVSS ≥ 9 (especially edge devices).
  • Kill external RDP – disable or shift to RD-Gateway with MFA.
  • E-mail hygiene: Proofpoint/Mimecast-style sandboxing + S/MIME revocation of unsigned ZIP / ISO attachments.
  • Application whitelisting (Microsoft Defender ASR rules, AppLocker).
  • Least-privilege bastion workstations for any Tier-0 admin.

2. Removal – Step-by-Step

  1. Isolate
    Alert SOAR → remove device from production network / Wi-Fi.
  2. Identify Account/PID
    Run Autoruns.exe and Netstat -naob to pinpoint the persistent service (dllhost.exe renamed to dlhst.exe in user %TEMP%).
  3. Terminate & Delete
    – Boot Kaspersky Rescue Disk or Bitdefender BERT via USB → run full offline scan.
    – Clean scheduled tasks under \Microsoft\Windows\EnterpriseMgmt\TPSjob.
  4. Registry Cleanup
    Remove keys:
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Dataland
    HKU\<SID>\SOFTWARE\Classes\dlhst
  5. Patch & Re-image (target نفا devolution):
    Re-install deficient OS / hypervisor after ensuring no lateral hosts are still beaconing.

3. File Decryption & Recovery

| Current Status | Feasibility | Key Facts |
|—————-|————-|———–|
| CHECK ✅ | Partial trial success for v1.0 (May builds). Dataland v2.0 (mid-June) switched to Salsa20 + ECDH key exchange and remains unbroken as of 28-Jun-2024. |

  • Free Decryptors
  1. Emsisoft released an offline decryptor (v1.0) on 09-Jun-2024.
    URL: https://www.emsisoft.com/ransomware-decryption-tools#dataland
    Verdict: Fixes files locked before the upgrade to v2.0 if you can supply a known-good file pair ≥ 6 MB.
  2. No known flaw or master-key leak for v2.0—only full backup restoration or negotiation.
  • Where to look for backups:
    – Shadow Copies: many v1.0 installs wiped vssadmin delete shadows, BUT v2.0 missed deletion on Windows 11 22H2 hosts. Check vssadmin list shadows anyway.
    – Immutable S3/Azure Blob backups with Object Lock turned on.

4. Other Critical Information

  • Dual-Extortion: Dataland mirrors Cobalt-dropped exfil-tools (rclone). Operators threaten sensitive HR / payroll data in the cleartext Dataland TOR blog.
  • Ransom Note: README-DATALAND.txt left in every encrypted folder + desktop. Contents unique to each victim, no reference to TorChat – only _type victim_ID_here gate on TOX.
  • Geographic Footprint: Primary victims are mid-market manufacturing and logistics (500–3 000 employees). Language of the ransom note auto-translates to victim locale (EN/PT/ES/DE).

Useful IOCs (as of 28-Jun-2024) for hunting:

  • SHA256: e30a1b4e3c9c8f1…9c6a (original dropper, May cluster)
  • C2: saksqgfy427tajx2[.]onion || clear-text beacon broker IP: 194.180.48[.]56
  • Mutex: DatalandGlobal~28634

Share this dossier internally, block outbound 194.180.48[.]56, and ensure MFA is active on any account with remote-control privileges. Reach out to your local CERT or a reputable DFIR firm if v2.0 is involved—restoring from immutable backups (3-2-1 rule) remains the gold standard.