Lotus Wiper Malware Targets Venezuelan Energy Systems in Destructive Attack
Lotus Wiper Malware Targets Venezuelan Energy Systems in Destructive Attack
https://thehackernews.com/2026/04/lotus-wiper-malware-targets-venezuelan.html
Publish Date: 2026-04-22 06:55:00
Source Domain: thehackernews.com
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a previously undocumented data wiper that has been used in attacks targeting Venezuela at the end of last year and the start of 2026.
Dubbed Lotus Wiper, the novel file wiper has been used in a destructive campaign targeting the energy and utilities sector in Venezuela, per findings from Kaspersky.
“Two batch scripts are responsible for initiating the destructive phase of the attack and preparing the environment for executing the final wiper payload,” the Russian cybersecurity vendor said. “These scripts coordinate the start of the operation across the network, weaken system defenses, and disrupt normal operations before retrieving, deobfuscating, and executing a previously unknown wiper.”
Once deployed, the wiper erases recovery mechanisms, overwrites the content of physical drives, and systematically deletes files across affected volumes, effectively leaving the system in an inoperable state.
No extortion or payment instructions are baked into the artifact, indicating that the aggressive wiper activity is not motivated by financial gain. It’s worth noting that the wiper was uploaded to a publicly available platform in mid-December 2025 from a machine in Venezuela, weeks before the U.S. military action in the country in early January 2026. The sample was compiled in late September 2025.
It’s currently not known if these two events are related, but Kaspersky noted that the sample was uploaded “during a period of increased public reports of malware activity targeting the same sector and region,” suggesting the wiper attack is extremely targeted in nature.
The attack chain begins with a batch script that triggers a multi-stage sequence responsible for dropping the wiper payload. Specifically, it attempts to stop the Windows Interactive Services Detection (UI0Detect) service, which is used to alert users when a background service running in Session 0…
