CrowdStrike® Intelligence has identified a new ransomware variant identifying itself as BitPaymer. This new variant was behind a series of ransomware campaigns beginning in June 2019, including attacks against the City of Edcouch, Texas and the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture. 

We have dubbed this new ransomware DoppelPaymer because it shares most of its code with the BitPaymer ransomware operated by INDRIK SPIDER. However, there are a number of differences between DoppelPaymer and BitPaymer, which may signify that one or more members of INDRIK SPIDER have split from the group and forked the source code of both Dridex and BitPaymer to start their own Big Game Hunting ransomware operation. 

INDRIK SPIDER Origins

INDRIK SPIDER was formed in 2014 by former affiliates of the GameOver Zeus criminal network who internally referred to themselves as “The Business Club.” Shortly after the group’s inception, INDRIK SPIDER developed their own custom malware known as Dridex. Early versions of Dridex were primitive, but over the years the malware became increasingly professional and sophisticated. In fact, Dridex operations were significant throughout 2015 and 2016, making it one of the most prevalent eCrime malware families. At this time, INDRIK SPIDER was primarily conducting wire fraud, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars globally.

Over time, INDRIK SPIDER encountered a number of obstacles to their wire fraud operations. First, in 2015 the group had to overcome a takedown operation, which resulted in the arrest of one of its affiliates, who used the alias “Smilex.” This setback was followed by a law enforcement operation in the U.K. designed to break up the money laundering network supporting INDRIK SPIDER’s monetization of Dridex campaigns. The dismantling of this network also coincided with the arrest, and subsequent imprisonment, of a U.K. bank employee who helped set up fake accounts.

Perhaps as a result of these obstacles, INDRIK SPIDER changed their methods of operation in 2017, conducting smaller Dridex distribution campaigns. In August 2017, the group introduced BitPaymer ransomware and began to focus on leveraging access within a victim organization to demand a high ransom payment.

BitPaymer Origins 

CrowdStrike Intelligence, has tracked the original BitPaymer since it was first identified in August 2017. In its first iteration, the BitPaymer ransom note included the ransom demand and a URL for a TOR-based payment portal. The payment portal included the title “Bit paymer” along with a reference ID, a Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, and a contact email address. An example of this portal is shown in Figure 1.

Within the first month of operation, the ransom amount was dropped from the ransom note. In July 2018, the payment portal URL was also removed. From July 2018 until present, the ransom note has only included two contact emails, which are used to negotiate the ransom.

Latest BitPaymer Version

In November 2018, there was a significant update to BitPaymer. The ransom note was updated to include the victim’s name, and the file extension appended to encrypted files was also customized to use a representation of the victim’s name. An example of the new ransom note is shown below in Figure 2.

In addition to the updated ransom note and encrypted file extension, BitPaymer’s file encryption routine was updated to use 256-bit AES in cipher block chaining (CBC) mode with a randomly generated key and a NULL initialization vector. Previous versions of BitPaymer had used 128-bit RC4.

Since AES is a block cipher, the implementation requires padding in cases where the data is not a multiple of the block size. Typically, this is implemented by adding zeros or the number n of padding bytes n times (also known as PKCS#7). However, INDRIK SPIDER chose to generate n bytes randomly for padding. As a result, the malware developer had to preserve the random padding bytes in order to correctly decrypt the last data block of an encrypted file. This is reflected in the BitPaymer ransom note with a new field of TAIL, as shown above in Figure 2, which contains the Base64-encoded TAIL padding and encrypted AES KEY.

Interestingly, the BitPaymer developers implemented an encryption initialization function in the ransomware code that selects one of three desired encryption algorithms. The algorithm is chosen by an argument that is passed as an integer parameter to the function. The current values supported are 1, 2, and 3 for 128-bit RC4, 128-bit AES and 256-bit AES, respectively. Newer versions of BitPaymer pass the hard-coded value of 3 for 256-bit AES encryption into the function, as shown in Figure 3.

Along with the updated file encryption routine, the size of the victim-specific RSA public key has also been increased from 1,024-bit to 4,096-bit. This asymmetric key is used to encrypt the generated symmetric file encryption keys. If the ransom is paid, INDRIK SPIDER will provide a decryption tool that contains the corresponding victim’s RSA private key.

It is unclear why INDRIK SPIDER moved from RC4 to AES encryption, but it may be due to concerns about the relative weakness of RC4 in comparison to AES. The increase in the RSA key size also greatly augments the cryptographic strength protecting the file encryption keys. However, there is no evidence that BitPaymer’s prior or current encryption has been broken.

Since the update in November 2018, INDRIK SPIDER has actively used the latest version of BitPaymer in at least 15 confirmed ransomware attacks. These attacks have continued throughout 2019, with multiple incidents occurring in June and July of 2019 alone.

Meet DoppelPaymer

While the first known victims of DoppelPaymer were targeted in June 2019, we were able to  recover earlier builds of the malware dating back to April 2019. These earlier builds are missing many of the new features found in later variants, so it is not clear if they were deployed to victims or if they were simply built for testing. 

To date, we have identified eight distinct malware builds and three confirmed victims with ransom amounts of 2 BTC, 40 BTC and 100 BTC. Based on the USD to BTC exchange rate at the time of this writing, these ransom amounts vary from approximately $25,000 to over $1,200,000. 

The ransom note used by DoppelPaymer is similar to those used by the original BitPaymer in 2018. The note does not include the ransom amount; however, it does contain a URL for a TOR-based payment portal, and instead of using the keyword KEY to identify the encrypted key, the note uses the keyword DATA as shown in Figure 4.

The payment portal for DoppelPaymer is almost identical to the original BitPaymer portal. The “Bit paymer” title is still present on the web page and a unique ID is still used to identify the victim. The portal provides a ransom amount, a countdown timer and a BTC address where the ransom payment can be sent. An example of the DoppelPaymer ransom portal web page is shown below in Figure 5.

DoppelPaymer and BitPaymer Encryption Comparison

Although DoppelPaymer and BitPaymer share significant amounts of code, there are some notable encryption differences, which are described in Table 1.

 

	DoppelPaymer	BitPaymer
Ransom note	Each readme file contains an encrypted 256-bit AES key in a field named DATA.	Each readme file contains an encrypted 256-bit AES key in a field named KEY. Older versions contained an encrypted 128-bit RC4 key in the KEY field. Current versions use anonymous email services such as ProtonMail for ransom payment negotiations.
Encryption	2048-bit RSA + 256-bit AES	4096-bit RSA + 256-bit AES. Older versions used 1024-bit RSA + 128-bit RC4.
Encryption (AES) padding scheme	Standard padding (PKCS#7)	Random bytes specified in a field named TAIL
Ransom filename	Encrypted files are renamed with a .locked extension.	Encrypted files are renamed with the victim name as the extension. Older versions are appended the suffix .locked to the names of encrypted files.

Table 1. Encryption-Related Differences Between DoppelPaymer and BitPaymer

There are obvious similarities between the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used by DoppelPaymer and prior TTPs of BitPaymer, such as the use of TOR for ransom payment and the .locked extension. However, the code overlaps suggest that DoppelPaymer is a more recent fork of the latest version of BitPaymer. For example, in the latest version of BitPaymer, the code for RC4 string obfuscation reverses the bytes prior to encryption, and includes a helper function that provides support for multiple forms of symmetric encryption (i.e., RC4, 128-bit AES, and 256-bit AES), as shown in Figure 3.

New DoppelPaymer Features and the Use of ProcessHacker

In addition to the changes discussed above, numerous modifications were made to the BitPaymer source code to improve and enhance DoppelPaymer’s functionality. For instance, file encryption is now threaded, which can increase the rate at which files are encrypted. The network enumeration code was updated to parse the victim system’s Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) table, retrieved with the command arp.exe -a. The resulting IP addresses of other hosts on the local network are combined with domain resolution results via nslookup.exe. (In a similar approach, previous versions of BitPaymer made use of the command net.exe view to enumerate network shares.) 

In addition, DoppelPaymer is designed to run only after a specific command line argument is provided. The malware computes a CRC32 checksum of the first argument passed on the command line and adds it with a constant value that is hard-coded in the binary. The malware then adds the instruction pointer address to this result, which becomes the destination for a jmp used to continue the malware execution. The hard-coded constant value is unique to each build. In the sampled analyzed, this value was 0x672e6eb7, as shown below in Figure 6.

If no arguments are provided, or if an incorrect value is provided on the command line, DoppelPaymer will crash. This design was likely intended to hinder automated malware analysis environments.

Perhaps the most interesting change that the DoppelPaymer author made is to terminate processes and services that may interfere with file encryption. DoppelPaymer contains several lists of CRC32 checksums of process and service names that are blacklisted. The malware author included CRC32 checksums rather than strings to hinder reverse engineering efforts. However, it is possible to brute-force all of the checksums and recover the respective strings, as shown in Tables 7-11 found in the Appendix.

ProcessHacker

In order to terminate some of these processes and services, DopplePaymer uses an interesting technique that leverages ProcessHacker, a legitimate open-source administrative utility. This application is bundled with a kernel driver that can be used to terminate processes and services. DoppelPaymer is bundled with six portable executable (PE) files that are encrypted and compressed in the malware’s sdata section. These PE files contain 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the following: 

• ProcessHacker application
• ProcessHacker kernel driver
• A custom stager DLL that is used to exploit ProcessHacker

The modules are extracted by using the first 16 bytes of the sdata section as an RC4 key to decrypt the next 4 bytes of data, which is the size (big endian) of the subsequent encrypted data. The encrypted data that follows also uses the first 16 bytes as an RC4 key to decrypt the remaining data. The format is shown below in Table 2.

16 Bytes	4 Bytes	16 Bytes	M Bytes
RC4 key	Encrypted data size (M)	RC4 key	Encrypted data

Table 2. Format of Encrypted DoppelPaymer ProcessHacker Related Modules

After decryption, the first 4 bytes are the size of the compressed data, and the next 4 bytes are the size of the uncompressed data, followed by the compressed data as shown in Table 3.

4 Bytes	4 Bytes	N Bytes
Compressed size (N bytes)	Uncompressed size	Compressed 32-bit and 64-bit Process Hacker modules

Table 3. Format of Encrypted DoppelPaymer ProcessHacker Related Modules Header and Data

The data is decompressed using aPLib, which produces the PE files in a custom structured format, where each PE contains an 8-byte header consisting of a magic 4-byte value, followed by another 4-byte value that specifies the size of the following PE data as shown in Table 4.

4 Bytes	4 Bytes	N Bytes	4 Bytes	4 Bytes	N Bytes
Magic value 1	Size of Module 1	Module 1	Magic value 2	Size of Module 2	Module 2	…

Table 4. DoppelPaymer ProcessHacker Packed Module Format

Table 5 contains the magic value and SHA256 hash for each ProcessHacker component. 

Magic Value	SHA256	Description
0xf03d9386	51d8618ec86159327e883615ad8989c7638172cf801f65ab0367e5b2e6af596a	DoppelPaymer’s ProcessHacker Stager DLL (32-bit)
0xa68d9640	d4a0fe56316a2c45b9ba9ac1005363309a3edc7acf9e4df64d326a0ff273e80f	ProcessHacker3 (32-bit)
0x53e9cd92	0f97f6d53fff47914174bc3a05fb016e2c02ed0b43c827e5e5aadba2d244aecc	KProcessHacker3 Kernel Driver (32-bit)
0x2fb0f795	bfb7e62ba4ad5975e68a1beefb045cb72e056911fd7a8b070a15029dfcbbefe1	DoppelPaymer’s ProcessHacker Stager DLL (64-bit)
0x7900f253	bd2c2cf0631d881ed382817afcce2b093f4e412ffb170a719e2762f250abfea4	ProcessHacker3 (64-bit)
0x8c64a981	70211a3f90376bbc61f49c22a63075d1d4ddd53f0aefa976216c46e6ba39a9f4	KProcessHacker3 Kernel Driver (64-bit)

Table 5. Encrypted PE Files Embedded in DoppelPaymer 

After decompression, all three binaries are written to the same directory. Both ProcessHacker and the kernel driver are written as random filenames, but the stager DLL filename is chosen to be one of the DLL names imported by ProcessHacker. DoppelPaymer then executes ProcessHacker which loads the stager DLL via DLL search order hijacking. Once loaded, ProcessHacker’s kernel driver is leveraged to kill the blacklisted processes.

DoppelPaymer Links to “Dridex 2.0”

A Dridex loader sample, identified by SHA256 hash 813d8020f32fefe01b66bea0ce63834adef2e725801b4b761f5ea90ac4facd3a, was distributed through the Emotet malware on June 4, 2019. The Dridex sample contained code to decrypt either a 32-bit or a 64-bit core bot module from its sdata section using the exact same encryption, compression, and data format (previously described) that DoppelPaymer uses to extract PEs from its sdata section. This observation ties this Dridex variant directly with DoppelPaymer. The Dridex sample was also unusual; not only because the Dridex loader was bundled with the bot core module (rather than dynamically retrieving it from a C2 server), but also because the bot core module had a version number of 2.0.0.78. We have seen subsequent updates to this new variant of the Dridex bot core module with the latest version being 2.0.0.80 at the time of writing. Of note, prior samples of Dridex had a version number of 4.0.0.87. It’s unclear why the malware author decided to use lower version numbers, but one explanation is that the threat actor views this new creation as “Dridex 2.0.”

Conclusion

Both BitPaymer and DoppelPaymer continue to be operated in parallel and new victims of both ransomware families have been identified in June and July 2019. The parallel operations, coupled with the significant code overlap between BitPaymer and DoppelPaymer, indicate not only a fork of the BitPaymer code base, but an entirely separate operation. This may suggest that the threat actor who is operating DoppelPaymer has splintered from INDRIK SPIDER and is now using the forked code to run their own Big Game Hunting ransomware operations. 

Additional Resources

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Appendix/Indicators

Indicator	Description
801b04a1504f167c25f568f8d7cbac13bdde6440a609d0dcd64ebe225c197f9b	DoppelPaymer SHA256 hash
813d8020f32fefe01b66bea0ce63834adef2e725801b4b761f5ea90ac4facd3a	Dridex 2.0 SHA256 hash

Table 6. DoppelPaymer and Dridex 2.0 IOCs

 

CRC32	String	CRC32	String	CRC32	String
0xc622a2b1	acronisagent	0x5c6cd7ac	msexchangeum	0xe381a459	epredline
0xa8e4e8c2	backupexecagentaccelerator	0xab07d275	msexchangeumcr	0xe7a6b2c5	mozyprobackup
0x6d7d9112	backupexecdevicemediaservice	0xe3d46892	mssqlserver	0xdf73ec1c	masvc
0xfef41240	backupexecjobengine	0xf203a569	msdtsserver	0xcc5f5bf1	macmnsvc
0x6c99d156	backupexecmanagementservice	0x6d90a649	mysql57	0x467255e4	mfemms
0x8ff434f5	backupexecrpcservice	0x2181c15e	osearch15	0x0f2ae79c	psqlwge
0xc08e25a9	backupexecvssprovider	0xcdf97a8b	oracleclientcache80	0x7e26520a	swprv
0x634332ff	dfsr	0xcaff10b3	quickbooksdb25	0x656c0e35	wsbexchange
0xfd7e1ab0	epintegrationservice	0x00c7b7a9	spadminv4	0xde2373de	winvnc4
0x69e7bca5	epprotectedservice	0x66a8eead	spsearchhostcontroller
0x68507185	epsecurityservice	0x46b607c2	sptracev4
0x5809f6f7	epupdateservice	0xdb1ac7bb	spusercodev4
0xc2b55fa6	mb3service	0xf3c045e4	spwriterv4
0xeca1f89e	msexchangees	0xd917e4cb	sqlbrowser
0x44dda068	msexchangemgmt	0x23bc321e	sqlsafeolrservice
0xbebe6687	msexchangemta	0x9626475b	sqlserveragent
0x03803c01	msexchangesa	0xf76fde75	sqltelemetry
0x0de53e33	msexchangesrs	0x9626475b	sqlserveragent
0x822dd426	msexchangeadtopology	0x25a92500	sqlwriter
0xacedcdb8	msexchangedelivery	0x243d4975	syncoveryvssservice
0x9060bcd4	msexchangediagnostics	0xc2a56207	veeambackupsvc
0x50f0d551	msexchangeedgesync	0x8dbf54db	veeamcatalogsvc
0xa300bbb0	msexchangehm	0x82d1c632	veeamcloudsvc
0x3040bb72	msexchangehmrecovery	0xb97407ef	veeamendpointbackupsvc
0x4014b792	msexchangeis	0x0aabacba	veeamenterprisemanagersvc
0x7e7e47bc	msexchangemailboxreplication	0x43d71e6c	veeammountsvc
0x23a626e2	msexchangerpc	0x0c6574ad	veeamnfssvc
0xa323c785	msexchangerepl	0x2491fd1c	veeamrestsvc
0xbfec4da3	msexchangeservicehost	0xe076d4a9	veeamtransportsvc
0xbe3d66d5	msexchangetransport	0xd67d1e60	epag

Table 7. DoppelPaymer Email Server, Backup, and Database Software CRC32 Blacklist

 

CRC32	String	CRC32	String	CRC32	String
0xae5a22b4	dropbox.exe	0xdc40adba	onenote.exe	0x306d51a0	sidebar.exe
0x6274fa64	cis.exe	0x4107aa76	oracle.exe
0xf62526b9	cistray.exe	0xbfdf529e	postgres.exe

Table 8. DoppelPaymer Antivirus, Backup, Database, and Windows Tool CRC32 Blacklist

 

CRC32	String	CRC32	String	CRC32	String
0x45a1c197	windefend	0x0b4fa6cf	msmpsvc	0xe067db30	mcafeeframework
0x987163e9	wdnissvc	0x360b9799	sentinelagent	0xfc95ba9d	mcafeeframeworkmcafeeframework
0x34220c33	cylancesvc	0xde3dabc7	ekrn	0x360b9799	sentinelagent
0x59d2dbbf	mbamservice	0xb78f9b4e	wrsvc	0x3b9f1b3e	sentinelhelperservice
0x27462fff	mbendpointagent	0x23b07ca0	vipre business service	0xa6772c96	sentinelstaticengine
0x93a7f221	sbamsvc	0x9a4f7f43	mcafeeengineservice

Table 9. DoppelPaymer Endpoint Security Software CRC32 Blacklist

 

CRC32	String	CRC32	String
0xf26f12c8	zonealarm.exe	0xcff1c71e	fortiwf.exe
0x993f5471	a2guard.exe	0x64760001	nortonsecurity.exe
0xd5345e50	a2service.exe	0x43c3c112	bullguard.exe
0xc459d010	a2start.exe	0x0d71efa0	bullguardbhvscanner.exe
0x0b02ef94	avastsvc.exe	0xa7dd5f59	bullguardscanner.exe
0x21579df3	avshadow.exe	0x77a2fba9	bullguardtray.exe
0x6b68c4c6	avastui.exe	0x50dbcbda	bullguardupdate.exe
0x0108a03e	fortiesnac.exe	0x6e7d6782	avira.servicehost.exe
0x830b705a	fortiproxy.exe	0xb8894b22	avira.systray.exe
0xca2d58f0	fortisslvpndaemon.exe	0x40cb21d3	avp.exe
0xe2c0fe91	fortitray.exe	0xb018d47e	mbcloudea.exe

Table 10. DoppelPaymer Security Software CRC32 Blacklist 1

CRC32	String	CRC32	String
0x1a2124c0	msascuil.exe	0x895abd73	nod32.exe
0x456b109f	wrsa.exe	0x2fba3706	mcshield.exe

Table 11. DoppelPaymer Security Software CRC32 Blacklist 2