Shinolock

Overview

Executive Summary

Technical Execution and Encryption Process

• Defense Evasion: It actively terminates running security software, disables Windows Defender, and halts database services (like SQL) to unlock files for encryption.
• Shadow Copy Deletion: To prevent easy recovery, Shinolock executes commands (e.g., `vssadmin.exe Delete Shadows /All /Quiet`) to destroy local Windows Volume Shadow Copies and backup catalogs.
• Encryption: It utilizes strong, military-grade encryption algorithms (such as AES-256 combined with RSA) to encrypt a wide range of file types (documents, databases, images). Encrypted files are typically appended with a specific, Shinolock-related extension.
• Extortion: A ransom note—usually a `.txt` or `.html` file—is dropped into every directory containing encrypted data, providing instructions on how to pay the attackers via Bitcoin or Monero to obtain the decryption tool.

Threat Impact

Resilience and Remediation Strategies

• Immutable Backups: Maintain robust, offline, and immutable backups. Ensure the backup infrastructure is completely segregated from the primary network to prevent Shinolock from encrypting the backups as well.
• RDP Security: Secure Remote Desktop Protocol by placing it behind a VPN, enforcing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and strictly limiting access via firewall rules.
• Behavioral EDR: Deploy EDR solutions configured to automatically block processes that attempt mass file modifications or the execution of `vssadmin.exe` for shadow copy deletion.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Ransomware.Shinolock
• Win32/Shinolock
• Trojan-Ransom.Shinolock

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

This family has been observed using the following ATT&CK techniques: T1486 T1490 T1562.001 T1078

Generated Detections (Boilerplate)

These YARA and Sigma rules are auto-generated based on the family name and aliases. They must be heavily tuned before deployment in a production environment.

YARA Rule

rule MALWARE_WIN_SHINOLOCK {
    meta:
        description = "Detects Shinolock (ransomware)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Boilerplate Generator"
        date = "2026-07-06"
    strings:
        $s1 = "shinolock" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "ransomware.shinolock" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "win32/shinolock" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan-ransom.shinolock" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

Sigma Rule

title: Suspicious Shinolock Activity
id: 71f6e1140a1911fa99d346e4df5587e0
status: experimental
description: Detects generic indicators of the shinolock malware family.
logsource:
    category: process_creation
    product: windows
detection:
    selection:
        Image|endswith:
            - '\cmd.exe'
            - '\powershell.exe'
        CommandLine|contains:
            - "*shinolock*"
            - "*ransomware.shinolock*"
            - "*win32/shinolock*"
            - "*trojan-ransom.shinolock*"
    condition: selection
level: medium

References & External Analysis

• Search "shinolock" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Families (Category: ransomware)

Explore other malware families in the same category:

• Zombieboy
• Ridapi
• Laban
• Gplyra
• Covus

Machine-readable

Get this profile as JSON: https://jordanricky1604-ship-it.github.io/malware-families-catalog/api/shinolock.json

Ecosystem & Interactive Environments

This profile is part of the Malware Families Catalog, a public dataset of 2,899 malware families. The catalog is also published across our ecosystem: Hugging Face, Kaggle, Zenodo, Replit, StackBlitz, CodeSandbox, and CodePen.