Gunra Ransomware Detection: New Threat Targets Various Industries Globally Using Double-Extortion Tactics and Advanced Malicious Behaviors
Table of contents:
According to Sophos, ransomware recovery costs surged to $2.73 million in 2024—marking a staggering 500% increase over the previous year and highlighting the growing financial impact of cyberattacks. As ransomware continues to dominate the threat landscape, adversaries are rapidly evolving their techniques and developing new malware variants. One of the latest additions is Gunra, a ransomware variant actively targeting Windows-based systems across industries such as real estate, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing.
Detect Gunra Ransomware Attacks
According to Cybersecurity Ventures, ransomware attacks are projected to strike every two seconds by 2031, emphasizing the critical need for proactive threat detection and defense. Modern ransomware campaigns are increasingly sophisticated, leveraging double-extortion tactics that not only encrypt data but also exfiltrate sensitive information to pressure victims into paying. One such emerging threat is Gunra, which has already made its mark with attacks in Japan, Egypt, Panama, Italy, and Argentina—highlighting its global footprint and capacity to severely disrupt business operations across industries.
To detect potential attacks against your organization at the earliest stages, SOC Prime Platform offers a dedicated Sigma rule addressing Gunra attacks. Hit the Explore Detections button below to access the rule, enriched with actionable CTI and backed by a complete product suite for advanced threat detection and hunting.
All the rules in the SOC Prime Platform are compatible with multiple SIEM, EDR, and Data Lake solutions and mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK® framework. Additionally, each rule is packed with detailed metadata, including threat intel references, attack timelines, triage recommendations, and more.
Optionally, cyber defenders can apply the broader “Ransomware” tag to access a wider range of detection rules covering ransomware attacks globally.
Security professionals might also leverage Uncoder AI, a private IDE & co-pilot for threat-informed detection engineering. Now powered by Llama 70B, all AI features in Uncoder are 100% free and available without limits. Instantly generate detection rules from raw threat intelligence, translate Sigma to 48+ SIEM, EDR, and Data Lake platforms, auto-predict MITRE ATT&CK tags, and validate rule logic before deployment. Leverage AI to summarize complex logic into decision trees, translate detections across 11 query languages, create optimized queries from IOCs, enrich rules with CTI in Roota format, and visualize Attack Flows (in public beta).
Gunra Ransomware Analysis
The Gunra Ransomware Group surfaced in April 2025 and is recognized as a financially driven threat actor employing double-extortion tactics and targeting organizations in various industry sectors worldwide. The ransomware encrypts victims’ data while also exfiltrating sensitive information to force payment.
CYFIRMA researchers have shed light on the newly emerging Gunra ransomware threat, which targets Windows systems and is designed with advanced evasion and anti-analysis features that help it bypass detection and hinder forensic analysis.
Gunra’s combination of stealth, encryption, and data theft makes it a serious threat to Windows-based environments. For anti-debugging and anti-reversing capabilities, Gunra employs the IsDebuggerPresent API to detect debugging tools like x64dbg or WinDbg and avoid anti-malware analysis. As for detection evasion and privilege escalation, the ransomware leverages GetCurrentProcess and TerminateProcess to manipulate processes, elevate privileges, and inject harmful code into other running processes and security software. It also employs the FindNextFileExW function to search for and target files with extensions like .docx, .pdf, .xls, .jpg.
The infection process begins with the creation of a process named “gunraransome.exe” visible in Task Manager, followed by the deletion of shadow copies using the WMI tool. Further, Gunra encrypts files and appends the “.ENCRT” extension to each filename and drops a ransom note titled “R3ADM3.txt” in every directory. The latter instructs victims on how to recover their files and pay the ransom, with the primary goal being financial gain. It also states that sensitive information has not only been encrypted but also exfiltrated. Victims are instructed to reach out via a designated .onion address on the Tor network within five days. The message includes typical extortion tactics, such as offering free decryption of a few files, warning against manual recovery attempts, and threatening to publish the stolen data on underground forums if the ransom is not paid.
Gunra ransomware demonstrates increasing sophistication in the modern-day cyber threat landscape by leveraging double-extortion tactics and advanced anti-analysis techniques aimed at disrupting operations and forcing payment for decryption. As potential Gunra ransomware mitigation measures, organizations are encouraged to perform regular backups, restrict administrative privileges, and use network segmentation to limit the attack surface, while monitoring WMI activity and enforcing file integrity checks can further minimize the risks of intrusions. SOC Prime Platform curates a complete product suite that fuses AI, automation, and real-time threat intelligence to help progressive organizations stay ahead of emerging threats and thwart cyber-attacks of increasing sophistication.