Akira Ransomware

History of Akira

Akira was first discovered in 2023 but the name is believed to come from a 1998 cyberpunk manga movie of the same name. The group attempts to carry out double extortion scheme with data exfiltrated before data on the infected device is encrypted.

Selected Attacks

Akira remains very active as evidenced by the 35 new victims recorded on the Akira leak site on a single day in November 2024. Although principally targeting organisations in the United States which are said to include the Gruskin Group, QuadraNet Enterprises, Southland Integrated Services, Freeman Johnson, and Stanford University the group has also attacked Swedish cloud services, a South African bank and a British foreign exchange amongst others

Technical Details

Static analysis showed that Akira is written in C++ and built for 64-bit systema. As with other modern ransomware families, Akira allows for partial and iterative encryption for performance, and so avoids detection. Files with specific extensions (exe, dll, sys, msi, lnk, akira), in specific folders (tmp, winnt, temp, thumb, $Recycle.Bin, System Volume, Boot, Windows, ProgramData) are excluded from encryption as are specific files (Bootmgr, BOOTNXT, DumpStack.log.tmp, pagefile.sys swapfile.sys, ntuser.dat)

Akira generates keys and salts using CryptGenRandom and then encrypts a file using the ChaCha8 encryption algorithm. Once the file is encrypted, it is given the extension ‘akira’ and a ransomware note is dropped into the target folder.

Parameter Description ——— ———— –encryption_path or -p Restrict encryption files to the folder and subfolders (this parameter was not always read in our tests) -localonly or ly Restrict encryption to encrypts the infected device –encryption_percent or -n Type of encryption according to percentage. Iterative above 2 MB –share_file or -s File identifying folder paths and devices to encrypt

Ransom Note

Akira ransoms note are titled ‘akira_readme.txt’. The content of the ransom note is: Hi friends,

Whatever who you are and what your title is if you’re reading this it means the internal infrastructure of your company is fully or partially dead, all your backups - virtual, physical - everything that we managed to reach - are completely removed. Moreover, we have taken a great amount of your corporate data prior to encryption.

Well, for now let’s keep all the tears and resentment to ourselves and try to build a constructive dialogue. We’re fully aware of what damage we caused by locking your internal sources. At the moment, you have to know:

1. Dealing with us you will save A LOT due to we are not interested in ruining your financially. We will study in depth your finance, bank & income statements, your savings, investments etc. and present our reasonable demand to you. If you have an active cyber insurance, let us know and we will guide you how to properly use it. Also, dragging out the negotiation process will lead to failing of a deal.

2. Paying us you save your TIME, MONEY, EFFORTS and be back on track within 24 hours approximately. Our decryptor works properly on any files or systems, so you will be able to check it by requesting a test decryption service from the beginning of our conversation. If you decide to recover on your own, keep in mind that you can permanently lose access to some files or accidently corrupt them - in this case we won’t be able to help.

3. The security report or the exclusive first-hand information that you will receive upon reaching an agreement is of a great value, since NO full audit of your network will show you the vulnerabilities that we’ve managed to detect and used in order to get into, identify backup solutions and upload your data.

4. As for your data, if we fail to agree, we will try to sell personal information/trade secrets/databases/source codes - generally speaking, everything that has a value on the darkmarket - to multiple threat actors at ones. Then all of this will be published in our blog - https://akiral2iz6a7qgd3ayp3l6yub7xx2uep76idk3u2kollpj5z3z636bad.onion.

5. We’re more than negotiable and will definitely find the way to settle this quickly and reach an agreement which will satisfy both of us.

If you’re indeed interested in our assistance and the services we provide you can reach out to us following simple instructions:

1. Install TOR Browser to get access to our chat room - https://www.torproject.org/download/.

2. Paste this link - https://akiralkzxzq2dsrzsrvbr2xgbbu2wgsmxryd4csgfameg52n7efvr2id.onion.

3. Use this code - [snip] - to log into our chat.

Keep in mind that the faster you will get in touch, the less damage we cause.

Recovery

Memcrypt Detect identifies live ransomware attacks and uses file and memory forensics to detect, prevent, and recover from forensic attacks. We recovered data using our product against a wide range of ransomware families, including Akira, that use standard and non-standard encryption algorithms. Please contact us on sales@memcrypt.io to see how we can assist you in recovering from ransomware.

References

Akira Ransomware https://www.trellix.com/en-au/blogs/research/akira-ransomware/ Unravelling Akira Ransomware https://cyble.com/blog/unraveling-akira-ransomware/

DISCLAIMER

This document is not a substitute for obtaining security and legal advice. All reasonable measures should be taken to lower the risk of exploitable potential weaknesses. This report does not constitute a guarantee or assurance of compliance. MemCrypt is not ultimately responsible for assessing and meeting compliance responsibilities.