Once available on GitHub, Cryptonite is a open source ransomware toolkit developed primarily by the CYBERDEVILZ group.

Although Cryptonite’s original repository was forked, these were all removed. It appears however that a version of it has endured, surfacing purely as a wiper due to “weak architecture and programming,” according to Fortinet researcher Gergely Revay.

In its original guise, Cryptonite allowed for some basic configurations, allowing users to change exclusion list, server URL, email address, and bitcoin wallet. However, what’s appearing now – whether by design or not –  shows a progress bar as it pretends to be a software update. The progress, however, actually represents the progress of encryption.

The critical difference is that once files have been encrypted, it doesn’t go on to display the window that would allow victims to start the decryption process, essentially turning Cryptonite into a destructive data wiper.

In its analysis, Fortinet concluded that this surviving version was not turned into a data wiper intentionally, the ‘lack of quality assurance led to a sample that did not work correctly. The problem with this flaw is that due to the design simplicity of the ransomware if the program crashes — or is even closed — there is no way to recover the encrypted files.’

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Seeing a defective version of a toolkit like Cryptonite reappear in the wild raises some interesting questions. While we’re often concerned about the evolving nature and sophistication of ransomware, oversimplification in its own right can often lead to problems.

In this case, a simple program crash turns this piece of ransomware into a data wiper as it no longer allows for the decryption process.

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