.bip Files Virus (Dharma Ransomware) – Remove and Restore Files

.bip Files Virus – Update June 2018

The .bip files virus has been detected by security researchers to be spread even more vigorously since the beginning of June, 2018. The ransomware virus spammers use the same techniques – malicious e-mail attachments which infect the users via malicious macros. The chain of activities, leading to the successful infection is performed as the graphic underneath displays:

There has also been a new variant of Dharma ransomware to be released out in the wild, using the .combo file extension added to the encrypted files. The ransomware virus is based on the .cezar family of Dharma ransomware and you can find more information about it in the related article underneath:

.bip Files Virus – How Does It Infect

In order to effectively infect the computers of victims, the .bip files virus uses a rather often used mean of distribution – via e-mails automatically sent to victims, in other words spam. These type of messages aim to convince victims to open a malicious attachment via trusting in its content in the sense that it is a legitimate document of some sort, for example:

• An invoice for a purchase.
• Banking statement document.
• Receipt of a purchase.
• Orders which you may or may not have conducted.
• Other important files.

The e-mails which are sent, carry the infection file of Dharma ransomware, using the .bip file extension are made as if they come from people who are employees of companies in order to convince victims into opening them, for instance:

Dharma .bip Files Virus – Malicious Activity

When the infection with this ransomware virus has taken place on your computer, the initial action of it is to conduct preparation type of activities, such as:

• To create mutexes.
• Interact with the Windows Registry Editor.
• Delete system backups and shadow copies.
• Change the wallpaper or automatically schedule the ransom note file to open on your desktop.
• It may touch some of the Windows key files in order to obtain administrative privileges.

The main malicious file of the .bip variant of Dharma ransomware has been reported to be an executable type of file, with the following name and signature:

SHA-256:044d3d36c7e7377e29da769397b3e173b21acc2a07a676c377d0335c36e0e01f
Name:detrimentalnue.exe
File size:431 KB
Source:VirusTotal

After the .bip version of Dharma ransomware has already dropped it’s infection file on the computers of victims, it may drop its payload files into the following directories of Windows:

• %Local%
• %Roaming%
• %AppData%
• %Temp%
• %Windows%

After doing so, the .bip iteration of the Dharma virus may also begin to interact with the Windows Registry Editor. The malware may add Windows Registry entries in the Run and RunOnce registry sub-keys of Windows, with the following location:

→ HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\

These registry sub-keys are mainly the ones used if you want to run programs on Windows start-up and Dharma ransomware uses them to set it’s own settings to run the malicious files and other modules of it which perform nefarious activities on the infected PC automatically when you start Windows. One of those activities is to delete the Windows shadow volume copies, which is done via a script that is automatically executed and runs the following commands in Windows Command Prompt:

→ bcdedit /set bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures
bcdedit /set recoveryenabled No
bcdedit /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures
bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled No
vssadmin delete shadows /for={volume} /oldest /all /shadow={ID of the Shadow} /quiet

The ransomware virus aims to perform multiple different types of activities in order to make sure the victim knows it’s presence. This includes dropping it’s ransom note in the files of the victim’s computer, which appears like the following:

Dharma .bip Ransomware – Encryption Process

Just like other variants of Dharma , this iteration uses the AES (advanced encryption standard) cipher that is classified as a Suite.B encryption algorithm and also used by the NSA for encrypting eyes-only types of files. This algorithm changes the data on the files of your computer so that they become no longer able to be opened. This activity then results in the Dharma ransomware leaving the files on your computer to seem as if they are corrupt and they cannot be opened by any form of software in the future.

The Dharma virus performs a scan before encrypting your files since the malware looks for types of files that contain the most often used file extensions, such as:

“PNG .PSD .PSPIMAGE .TGA .THM .TIF .TIFF .YUV .AI .EPS .PS .SVG .INDD .PCT .PDF .XLR .XLS .XLSX .ACCDB .DB .DBF .MDB .PDB .SQL .APK .APP .BAT .CGI .COM .EXE .GADGET .JAR .PIF .WSF .DEM .GAM .NES .ROM .SAV CAD Files .DWG .DXF GIS Files .GPX .KML .KMZ .ASP .ASPX .CER .CFM .CSR .CSS .HTM .HTML .JS .JSP .PHP .RSS .XHTML. DOC .DOCX .LOG .MSG .ODT .PAGES .RTF .TEX .TXT .WPD .WPS .CSV .DAT .GED .KEY .KEYCHAIN .PPS .PPT .PPTX ..INI .PRFEncodedFiles .HQX .MIM .UUE .7Z .CBR .DEB .GZ .PKG .RAR .RPM .SITX .TAR.GZ .ZIP .ZIPX .BIN .CUE .DMG .ISO .MDF .TOAST .VCD SDF .TAR .TAX2014 .TAX2015 .VCF .XML Audio Files .AIF .IFF .M3U .M4A .MID .MP3 .MPA .WAV .WMA Video Files .3G2 .3GP .ASF .AVI .FLV .M4V .MOV .MP4 .MPG .RM .SRT .SWF .VOB .WMV 3D .3DM .3DS .MAX .OBJR.BMP .DDS .GIF .JPG ..CRX .PLUGIN .FNT .FON .OTF .TTF .CAB .CPL .CUR .DESKTHEMEPACK .DLL .DMP .DRV .ICNS .ICO .LNK .SYS .CFG”

The .bip files variant of Dharma is clever enough not to encrypt files in those folders:

• %Windows%
• %System32%
• %System%
• %Local%
• %Temp%
• %Program Files%

This is a preventive measure to leave your computer intact while you cannot use your important documents. The files which are encrypted by Dharma ransomware start to appear like the following image shows: