Threat Assessment: Clop Ransomware

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Executive Summary

Unit 42 researchers have observed an uptick in Clop ransomware activity affecting the wholesale and retail, transportation and logistics, education, manufacturing, engineering, automotive, energy, financial, aerospace, telecommunications, professional and legal services, healthcare and high tech industries in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Clop also leverages double extortion practices and hosts a leak site, where the number of victims has grown significantly since its launch in March 2020. Clop has been commonly observed being delivered as the final-stage payload of a malicious spam campaign carried out by the financially motivated actor TA505. This ransomware has also been linked to threat actors behind the recent global zero-day attacks on users of the Accellion File Transfer Appliance (FTA) product.

Due to the surge of this malicious activity, we’ve created this threat assessment for overall threat awareness. Full visualization of the techniques observed and their relevant courses of action can be viewed in the Unit 42 ATOM Viewer.

Clop Ransomware Overview

Clop ransomware is a variant of a previously known strain called CryptoMix. In 2019, Clop was delivered as the final payload of a phishing campaign associated with the financially motivated actor TA505. The threat actors would send phishing emails that would lead to a macro-enabled document that would drop a loader named Get2. This loader can download different tools used by this group, such as SDBot, FlawedAmmy or FlawedGrace. After the threat actors obtain the initial foothold on the system, they start employing reconnaissance, lateral movement and exfiltration techniques to prepare the ransomware deployment. SDBot has been observed delivering Clop as the final payload.

After the ransomware is executed, Clop appends the .clop extension to the victim's files. We have observed different variants using different extensions, such as “.CIIp”, “.Cllp” and “.C_L_O_P”. Different versions of the ransom note have also been observed after encryption. Depending on the variant, any of these ransom text files could drop: “ClopReadMe.txt”, “README_README.txt”, “Cl0pReadMe.txt“ and “READ_ME_!!!.TXT”.

This ransomware includes various features to avoid detection. Observed Clop samples try to kill several processes and services related to backups and security solutions. It won’t execute if it detects it’s running in a virtual environment. Clop also leverages Code Signing to evade detection. We observed the use of two signers during our research, as shown below in Figure 1.

Clop went from being ransomware delivered through malicious spam to being used in targeted campaigns against high-profile companies. In recent events, Clop has been linked to threat actors who have been exploiting Accellion File Transfer Appliance (FTA) vulnerabilities: CVE-2021-27101, CVE-2021-27102, CVE-2021-27103 and CVE-2021-27104. The exploitation of these vulnerabilities led to the compromise of high-profile companies starting in February. Additionally, there has been evidence of an affiliate using a webshell named DEWMODE that was being used to steal data from Accellion FTA devices. Not long after compromise, victims affected by DEWMODE began receiving emails from threat actors announcing the breach with an unique URL per victim to start negotiation efforts. If ignored, the threat actors would reach out again with an ultimatum of releasing the data to “Cl0p^_-Leaks”.

Clop didn't have a leak site when it was first sighted back in February 2019. It was in March 2020 when the threat actors decided to launch a leak site titled, “Cl0p^_- Leaks” (Figure 2). This website is a Tor-based blog site, where victims who don’t pay the ransom or ignore threats have their confidential data publicly exposed. The threat actors behind Clop also leverage a variety of extortion techniques, such as targeting workstations of top executives, “doxxing” employees and advertising their breaches to reporters.

More information on ransomware and victimology can be found in the 2021 Unit 42 Ransomware Threat Report.

Courses of Action

This section documents relevant tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used with Clop and maps them directly to Palo Alto Networks product(s) and service(s). It also further instructs customers on how to ensure their devices are configured correctly.

<sup>Table 1. Courses of Action for Clop ransomware.
†These capabilities are part of the NGFW security subscriptions service.
* These analytic detectors will trigger automatically for Cortex XDR Pro customers.</sup>

Conclusion

Clop ransomware is a high-profile ransomware family that has compromised industries globally. Organizations should be aware of SDBot, used by TA505, and how it can lead to the deployment of Clop ransomware. Like many other current ransomware families, Clop hosts a leak site to create additional pressure and shame victims into paying the ransom.

Indicators associated with this Threat Assessment are available on GitHub, have been published to the Unit 42 TAXII feed and are viewable via the ATOM Viewer.

In addition to the above courses of action, AutoFocus customers can review additional activity by using the tag Clop.

Additional Resources

• Highlights from the 2021 Unit 42 Ransomware Threat Report
• Ransomware Threat Assessments: A Companion to the 2021 Unit 42 Ransomware Threat Report
• Clop Ransomware
• Threat Actor Profile: TA505, From Dridex to GlobeImposter
• Cyber Criminals Exploit Accellion FTA for Data Theft and Extortion
• SDBot
• Clop, Clop! It’s a TA505 HTML malspam analysis
• Subvert Trust Controls: Code Signing
• Some ransomware gangs are going after top execs to pressure companies into paying
• CVE-2021-27101
• CVE-2021-27102
• CVE-2021-27103
• CVE-2021-27104

Palo Alto Networks has shared our findings, including file samples and indicators of compromise, in this report with our fellow Cyber Threat Alliance members. CTA members use this intelligence to rapidly deploy protections to their customers and to systematically disrupt malicious cyber actors. For more information on the Cyber Threat Alliance, visit www.cyberthreatalliance.org.