Medium
The Thanos ransomware was first discussed by Recorded Future in February 2020 when it was advertised for sale on underground forums. The Thanos ransomware has a builder that allows actors to customize the sample with a variety of available settings. The fact Thanos is for sale suggests the likelihood of multiple threat actors using this ransomware. However, we believe with high confidence that the same actor used a Thanos variant in attacks on two state-run organizations in the Middle East and North Africa. The Thanos variant created a text file that displayed a ransom message requesting the victim to transfer “20,000$” into a specified Bitcoin wallet to restore the files on the system. Below is the ransom note found on encrypted machines.