VERY IMPORTANT

In recent months, a new trend seems to be emerging: targeted attacks where ransomware is deployed by threat actors after successfully gaining unauthorized access to an organization’s network. One malware family seen in such attacks is known as ‘SamSa’, ‘Samas’, ‘samsam’, or most recently, ‘MOKOPONI’. Reports on this malware family have previously been published by both Intel Security and Microsoft. Palo Alto Networks has collected over 20 samples of this particular malware family, and we have identified over $70,000 USD in Bitcoin payments to the attacker (Cisco Talos yesterday reported this figure to be closer to $115,000 USD). This blog details the evolution of this malware family, which was first witnessed in December 2015, as well as provides various indicators of compromise (IOCs) that can be used by the security community.