New Sarbloh ransomware supports Indian farmers’ protest


Protestors

A new ransomware known as Sarbloh encrypts your files while at the same time delivering a message supporting the protests of Indian farmers.

Last year the Indian government passed a new set of laws called the ‘Indian agriculture acts of 2020’, also known as the Farm Bills, which the government says is necessary to modernize its agricultural industry.

Farmers believe that these new laws will hurt their livelihoods and make it more challenging to generate revenue as the new laws removed restrictions on how farmers can sell goods and for how much.

Since November 2020, thousands of Indian farmers have been protesting these bills outside of New Delhi.

New Sarbloh ransomware supports the Indian farmers

As detailed by numerous security firms, including Malwarebytes, Cyble, and QuickHeal, a new ransomware known as ‘Sarbloh’ is being distributed through malicious Word documents that contain a political message in support of Indian farmers.

It is unknown whether the malicious Word document is sent via phishing emails or another method, but when opening it, users will be prompted to ‘Enable Content’ to view its content correctly.

Malicious Word document
Malicious Word document

When the button is press, the Word document’s macros will download a file called putty.exe using bitsadmin.exe to the Documents folder and then executed.

When executed, the ransomware will encrypt files on the computer that match certain file types and append the .sarbloh to the file’s name. For example, the file 1.jpg would be encrypted and renamed to 1.jpg.sarbloh.

Sarbloh encrypted files
Sarbloh encrypted files

After the files on the computer have been encrypted, a ransom note will be created called README_SARBLOH.txt that contains a message supporting the farmers in India.

Sarbloh ransom note
Sarbloh ransom note

The full text of this ransom note can be read below:

YOUR FILES ARE GONE!!!
THEY WILL NOT BE RECOVERABLE UNTIL THE DEMANDS OF THE FARMERS HAVE BEEN MET

WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?
Using military grade EnCryPtiOn all the files on your system have been made useless.

India, Sikhs have long been the face against the oppression placed upon them.
Each time we have resisted.
Today you come for the very throats of Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim farmers by trying to take their…

Source…