Data breaches, cyberattacks and other nefarious attempts to steal data are always looking for new approaches or back doors into a system. Ransomware has been one of the latest and now a new form of ransomware is threatening business networks. This interesting information came to us from Bleeping Computer in their article, “SNAKE Ransomware Is the Next Threat Targeting Business Networks.

Enterprise targeting, or as some refer to it “big-game hunting” ransomware is used to infiltrate a business network, gather administrator credentials and then use post-exploitation tools to encrypt the files on all of the computers on the network.

Based on the analysis of this particular ransomware, the code is written in Golang and contains a high level of obfuscation than is not commonly seen with these types of infections.

It did take Snake a particularly long time to encrypt during testing, as compared to other ransomware infections. As this is targeted ransomware that is executed at the time of the attacker’s choosing, this may not be that much of a problem as the encryption will most likely occur after hours. Only time will tell.

Melody K. Smith

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