📚 Clop Ransomware Upgraded, Now can Terminate 663 Windows Processes

In February 2019, Michael Gillespie from MalwareHunter Team founded Clop ransomware that has been evolving to reach its full potential and now a variant of the same can terminate a total of 663 Windows processes.

While it was first discovered, it did not demonstrate any unique quality which made it stand out amid other ransomware variants, it was merely another likewise addition in the ransomware ecosystem like others that existed since 2017. However, it has continued to take various forms since its discovery and is emerging with all new and integrated process killer that affects several processes of Windows 10 apps, office applications, programming IDEs, languages and text editors.

As per the sources, it was noted in March 2019, that the attackers behind Clop Ransomware started to target entire networks instead of individual systems, they changed the ransom note to imply the same. The same year also witnessed a sudden disruption in the services of Clop Ransomware wherein they abruptly changed and disabled services for Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Microsoft Exchange, BackupExec and other enterprise software.

In 2019, while warning the organizations and businesses regarding app-killing malware, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that the ransomware threat now is even amplified as the attackers are continually upgrading themselves, they have devised ways to bypass detection and be more effective in their operations. Organizations are being warned by investigative agencies to keep abreast of such potential threats and build a security net to guard their systems.

While commenting on the matter, Abrams, editor-in-chief for Bleeping Computer said, "It is not known why some of these processes are terminated," Bleeping Computer editor-in-chief, Abrams, said, "especially ones like Calculator, Snagit, and SecureCRT, but it’s possible they want to encrypt configuration files used by some of these tools."

Meanwhile, in a conversation with SC Media UK, Javvad Malik, security awareness advocate at KnowBe4, told "Clop is a variant of the CryptoMix ransomware family, but has been evolving rapidly in the last year to disable an increasingly large number of windows processes,"

"The main goal of Clop is to encrypt all files in an enterprise and request a payment to receive a decryptor to decrypt all the affected files," read the McAfee report in August.

"To achieve this, we observed some new techniques being used by the author that we have not seen before. Clearly, over the last few months, we have seen more innovative techniques appearing in ransomware."