Symantec Threat Hunter Team Discovers New Ransomware

October 15, 2021

The Symantec Threat Hunter Team at Broadcom Software recently discovered a new ransomware family called Yanluowang.

Although there are signs that it has been poorly coded due to a lack of sophisticated features, researchers believe it is relatively new and under development, and that it is also dangerous.

In its report on Ransomware, Symantec found, “This tool is often abused by ransomware attackers as a reconnaissance tool, as well as to equip the attackers with the resources that they need for lateral movement via Active Directory. Just days after the suspicious AdFind activity was observed on the victim organization, the attackers attempted to deploy the Yanluowang ransomware.”

Before using the ransomware itself, Yanluowang leaves behind a few signs behind on a compromised computer including the creation of a .txt file with the number of remote computers in the network which is run against Windows management instrumentation to obtain a list of the processes that are run on these machines and are logged in return to the .txt file for a later retrieval.

Once installed, the Ransomware stops all hypervisor VMS that run on a compromised computer, terminates the processes listed in the .txt file, encrypts files, and deposits a readme with a ransom note on the infected computer.

For more information, read the original story in Tech Republic.

Top Stories

Related Articles

March 30, 2026 Google has expanded its “Results about you” tool, allowing users to remove highly sensitive personal data, including more...

March 27, 2026 Microsoft is updating GitHub Copilot to train on real-world developer interactions, expanding beyond public code datasets to more...

March 23, 2026 David Shipley, co-host of Cybersecurity today is covering RSAC for Tech Newsday and Cybersecurity Today.  SAN FRANCISCO more...

March 23, 2026 The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has banned the import of all new foreign-made consumer routers following a more...

Picture of TND News Desk

TND News Desk

Staff writer for Tech Newsday.
Picture of TND News Desk

TND News Desk

Staff writer for Tech Newsday.

Jim Love

Jim is an author and podcast host with over 40 years in technology.

Share:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn