McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research team has performed analysis on samples of Syn/Ack ransomware implementing Process Doppelgänging. For those who are concerned about the potential impact of this ransomware but are currently unable to implement McAfee product protections, we have found a simple but interesting alternative method. Prior to encryption and ransom, the malware first checks if one of several hardcoded keyboards or languages is installed on the target machine. If found, the malicious code will terminate, effectively resulting in an extremely simple “patch” of sorts. We have tested the following steps to be effective on several versions of Windows 7 and theoretically on Windows 10 – preventing the malware from encryption and ransom. These steps can be taken proactively. Due to limited scope of testing at this time, this technique may not work on all systems, release versions, and configurations.
Windows 7 – Adding Keyboard Layout:
Control Panel > Clock, Language, and Region > Region and Language > Keyboards and Languages
Click the “Change Keyboards” tab
In the Installed Services section click “add”
Select Keyboard – For example: Russian (Russia) > Keyboard > Russian
Click “Ok”
Click “Apply”
Click “Ok”
Here is the list of keyboards layouts you can add – any will suffice:
- Armenian
- Azeri, (Cyrillic, Azerbaijan)
- Belarusian
- Georgian
- Kazakh
- Ukrainian
- Uzbek (Cryillic, Uzbekistan)
- Uzbek (Latin,Uzbekistan)
- Russian
- Tajik
Windows 10 – Adding Language Support:
Control Panel > Language > Add a language
- Armenian
- Azeri, (Cyrillic, Azerbaijan)
- Belarusian
- Georgian
- Kazakh
- Ukrainian
- Uzbek (Cryillic, Uzbekistan)
- Uzbek (Latin,Uzbekistan)
- Russian
- Tajik
That’s all it takes! Please note – this should not be considered a fully effective or long-term strategy. It is highly likely the malware will change based on this finding; thus, we recommend the McAfee product protections referenced above for best effect.
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