Karmen Ransomware

Posted: March 16, 2017

Threat Metric

The Threat Meter is a malware assessment that SpywareRemove.com's research team is able to give every identifiable malware threat. Our Threat Meter includes several criteria based off of specific malware threats to value their severity, reach and volume. The Threat Meter is able to give you a numerical breakdown of each threat's initial Threat Level, Detection Count, Volume Count, Trend Path and Percentage Impact. The overall ranking of each threat in the Threat Meter is a basic breakdown of how all threats are ranked within our own extensive malware database. The scoring for each specific malware threat can be easily compared to other emerging threats to draw a contrast in its particular severity. The Threat Meter is a useful tool in the endeavor of seeking a solution to remove a threat or pursue additional analytical research for all types of computer users.

The following fields listed on the Threat Meter containing a specific value, are explained in detail below:

Threat Level: The threat level scale goes from 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest level of severity and 1 is the lowest level of severity. Each specific level is relative to the threat's consistent assessed behaviors collected from SpyHunter's risk assessment model.

Detection Count: The collective number of confirmed and suspected cases of a particular malware threat. The detection count is calculated from infected PCs retrieved from diagnostic and scan log reports generated by SpyHunter.

Volume Count: Similar to the detection count, the Volume Count is specifically based on the number of confirmed and suspected threats infecting systems on a daily basis. High volume counts usually represent a popular threat but may or may not have infected a large number of systems. High detection count threats could lay dormant and have a low volume count. Criteria for Volume Count is relative to a daily detection count.

Trend Path: The Trend Path, utilizing an up arrow, down arrow or equal symbol, represents the level of recent movement of a particular threat. Up arrows represent an increase, down arrows represent a decline and the equal symbol represent no change to a threat's recent movement.

% Impact (Last 7 Days): This demonstrates a 7-day period change in the frequency of a malware threat infecting PCs. The percentage impact correlates directly to the current Trend Path to determine a rise or decline in the percentage.

Threat Level:	10/10
Infected PCs:	166

First Seen:	March 16, 2017
Last Seen:	May 2, 2022
OS(es) Affected:	Windows

The Karmen Ransomware is an estimated member of the Hidden Tear family of Trojans, a project made for demonstrating the attack capabilities of file-encrypting threats originally. Since the Karmen Ransomware includes functional file-enciphering attacks, a full recovery of any content it locks may be difficult without using backups not affected by the original infection. Most PC users should protect themselves by using anti-malware tools for deleting the Karmen Ransomware before its installation can happen.

Trojans with Ransoms that Know No National Boundaries

Although it's not absolute, threat authors often prefer to laser-target their attacks against specific nationalities or particular organizations, such as a business. Contrariwise, some threat actors implement cross-national features in their products occasionally, such as the latest suspected byproduct of Hidden Tear. The newly-confirmed Trojan, the Karmen Ransomware, increases its chances of collecting any ransom money by delivering messages in different languages that the victim can select.

The Karmen Ransomware may enumerate both network-shared drives and local ones in its scans for files to encrypt, a feature that shows no symptoms while it occurs. It uses an encryption algorithm such as the AES-128 to lock any files, excluding the ones required by Windows, and uploads the key for decoding them to a Command & Control server. The '.grt' extension that the Karmen Ransomware adds to the end of each filename allows the victim to detect the affected content without opening each one individually.

Lastly, the Karmen Ransomware generates a pop-up ransoming message that malware researchers have deemed unique to this campaign, for now. The window displays options for its ransoming message delivery in German or English, along with Bitcoin-based fields for the payment quantity and the con artist's address. Because these people don't always honor these 'agreements' for purchasing a decryptor, malware experts advise not paying any ransom from the Karmen Ransomware, which a variety of potentially unreliable threat actors can administrate.

A PC Security Problem for Hire to Any Interested Party

The Karmen Ransomware is a part of the Ransomware-as-a-Service or RaaS model of business within the threat black market, which means that other threat actors can pay fees (either upfront or as a percentage of the ransom money) to operate this Trojan. This method of business makes the Karmen Ransomware's infection vectors as variable theoretically as the types of con artists who pay to use it. Attacks of a similar nature often exploit weak passwords, poorly-managed RDP settings, and e-mail spam for installing file-encrypting Trojans like the Karmen Ransomware.

The files that Hidden Tear-based Trojans block sometimes can be decryptable, although a free decryption solution never is an absolute. PC users without any backups available should contact an appropriate cyber security specialist for help with any possible data recovery. Malware experts also still encourage keeping backups in locations such as USB drives and cloud networks that are much less at risk of being damaged.

Removing the Karmen Ransomware and Trojans like it only can be a sure promise of defense from data loss when you do it by preventative means. Those who use computers in their daily lives without taking any steps for protecting them still are sources of profit to con artists who don't need to know programming to aim threats like weapons.

Technical Details

Registry Modifications

The following newly produced Registry Values are:

HKEY..\..\..\..{RegistryKeys}Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\DecryptFilesSoftware\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\DecryptFiles