HC7
Intelligence Profile
A new ransomware called HC7 is infecting victims by hacking into Windows computers that are running publicly accessible Remote Desktop services. Once the developers gain access to the hacked computer, the HC7 ransomware is then installed on all accessible computers on the network.
Originally released as HC6, victims began posting about it in the BleepingComputer forums towards the end of November. As this is a Python-to-exe executable, once the script was extracted ID Ransomware creator Michael Gillespie was able determine that it was decryptable and released a decryptor.
Unfortunately, a few days later, the ransomware developers released a new version called HC7 that was not decryptable. Thi sis because they removed the hard coded encryption key and instead switched to inputting the key as a command line argument when the attackers run the ransomware executable. Thankfully, there may be a way to get around that as well so that victims can recover their keys.
Threat Analysis
HC7 is a known-sophistication threat actor of undetermined national origin, engaged in cyber operations with a primary motivation of unknown activity patterns.