Alert on Black Basta Ransomware Released by FBI and CISA

The FBI, CIA and MS-ISAC have issued an advisory on the Black Basta ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation which has attacked more than 500 organizations and critical infrastructure providers across 12 sectors in North America, Europe, and Australia over the course of the last year.

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"Black Basta affiliates use common initial access techniques — such as phishing and exploiting known vulnerabilities — and then employ a double-extortion model, both encrypting systems and exfiltrating data," Hacker News reports.

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“Unlike other ransomware groups, the ransom notes dropped at the end of the attack do not contain an initial ransom demand or payment instructions. Rather, the notes provide victims with a unique code and instruct them to contact the gang via a .onion URL.”

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Takeaway: Black Basta is a RaaS that emerged in early 2022 and is assessed by some researchers to be an offshoot of the disbanded Conti and REvil attack groups.  

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The group routinely exfiltrates sensitive data from victims for additional extortion leverage. Black Basta engages in highly targeted attacks and is assessed to only work with a limited group of highly vetted affiliate attackers.  

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Black Basta continues to evolve their RaaS platform, with ransomware payloads that can infect systems running both Windows and Linux systems. Black Basta is particularly adept at exploiting vulnerabilities in VMware ESXi running on enterprise servers.  

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Black Basta ransomware is written in C++ and can target both Windows and Linux systems, encrypts data with ChaCha20, and then the encryption key is encrypted with RSA-4096 for rapid encryption of the targeted network.  

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In some cases, Black Basta leverages malware strains like Qakbot and exploits such as PrintNightmare during the infection process. Black Basta also favors abuse of insecure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) deployments, one of the leading infection vectors for ransomware.

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Black Basta also employs a double extortion scheme and maintains an active leaks website where they post exfiltrated data if an organization declines to pay the ransom demand.

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Ransom demands vary depending on the targeted organization with reports that they can be as high as $2 million dollars. It is estimated that Black Basta exceeded $107 million in ransom revenue from more than 90 victims in less than two years.  

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Black Basta typically targets manufacturing, transportation, construction and related services, telecommunications, the automotive sector, and healthcare providers.

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Notable victims include Southern Water, BionPharma, M&M Industries, Coca Cola, Yellow Pages Canada, AgCo, Capita, ABB, Merchant Schmidt, Tag Aviation, Blount Fine Foods.

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Halcyon.ai is the leading anti-ransomware company that closes endpoint protection gaps and defeats ransomware through built-in bypass and evasion protection, key material capture, automated decryption, and data exfiltration prevention – talk to a Halcyon expert today to find out more. Halcyon also publishes a quarterly RaaS and extortion group reference guide, Power Rankings: Ransomware Malicious Quartile.