Pakistan’s National Cyber Emergency Response Team (NCERT) has issued urgent warnings to 39 government ministries following a sophisticated ransomware campaign targeting the country’s critical infrastructure.
The Blue Locker ransomware has successfully compromised Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), the nation’s second-largest oil company, in an attack that occurred on August 6, 2025, just days before Pakistan’s Independence Day celebrations.
The ransomware campaign represents a significant escalation in cyber threats against South Asian critical infrastructure, with attackers successfully encrypting systems and exfiltrating over 1TB of sensitive data.
The breach affected crucial operational data, including Petrel Studio exploration files, production databases, operations plans, and financial records.
PPL’s spokesperson confirmed the incident, stating that the company immediately activated internal cybersecurity protocols and initiated a comprehensive forensic analysis to assess the full scope of the compromise.
Resecurity researchers noted that Blue Locker appears to be a variant of the Proton ransomware family, sharing similarities with previous strains including Limba, Zola, and Shinra.
The malware demonstrates sophisticated evasion capabilities and employs double extortion tactics, threatening to publish stolen data if ransom demands are not met.
Security analysts identified connections between this campaign and earlier ransomware operations, suggesting possible shared authorship or code reuse among cybercriminal groups.
The timing of the attack, coinciding with Pakistan’s national holiday, raises concerns about potential nation-state involvement rather than traditional cybercriminal motivations.
The strategic targeting of energy sector infrastructure suggests actors with geopolitical objectives, though attribution remains challenging due to deliberate obfuscation techniques employed by the attackers.
Advanced Persistence and Evasion Mechanisms
Blue Locker demonstrates remarkable sophistication in its persistence mechanisms, establishing multiple foothold techniques to maintain long-term access to compromised systems.
The ransomware achieves persistence by modifying the Windows registry, specifically inserting itself into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\NT\CurrentVersion\Run key.
This registry manipulation ensures automatic execution following system reboots, allowing the malware to maintain control even after restart attempts.
The malware employs advanced anti-analysis techniques, including process enumeration to identify and terminate security tools.
It specifically targets Chrome processes using XOR-encoded strings that appear as Chinese characters but decode to “Chrome.exe”.
Once located, Blue Locker forcibly terminates the browser process to bypass file locks and gain access to Chrome’s password database, subsequently encrypting these critical authentication files.
Blue Locker utilizes a combination of AES and RSA encryption algorithms, systematically encrypting files while deliberately avoiding system-critical directories such as Windows, System Volume Information, and Boot folders.
The ransomware appends the “.blue” extension to encrypted files and executes shadow copy deletion commands through wmic SHADOWCOPY DELETE, effectively preventing victims from utilizing built-in Windows recovery mechanisms to restore their data without paying the demanded ransom.
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