Ransomware: Analysing the Impact on Windows Active Directory Domain Services

TL;DR

This study investigates how three ransomware variants impact Windows Server's Active Directory services, revealing that while services remain operational, their functionality is compromised due to file encryption.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of ransomware effects on Windows Active Directory, highlighting service functionality despite encryption-induced dysfunction.

Findings

Services remained operational despite encryption

Ransomware encrypted files but did not stop domain processes

Services became dysfunctional even while running

Abstract

Ransomware has become an increasingly popular type of malware across the past decade and continues to rise in popularity due to its high profitability. Organisations and enterprises have become prime targets for ransomware as they are more likely to succumb to ransom demands as part of operating expenses to counter the cost incurred from downtime. Despite the prevalence of ransomware as a threat towards organisations, there is very little information outlining how ransomware affects Windows Server environments, and particularly its proprietary domain services such as Active Directory. Hence, we aim to increase the cyber situational awareness of organisations and corporations that utilise these environments. Dynamic analysis was performed using three ransomware variants to uncover how crypto-ransomware affects Windows Server-specific services and processes. Our work outlines the practical investigation undertaken as WannaCry, TeslaCrypt, and Jigsaw were acquired and tested against several domain services. The findings showed that none of the three variants stopped the processes and decidedly left all domain services untouched. However, although the services remained operational, they became uniquely dysfunctional as ransomware encrypted the files pertaining to those services