The Black Basta Ransomware Gang Attacks Piemme

The Black Basta ransomware gang has attacked Piemme. Piemme, also known as Edizioni Piemme, is an Italian publishing house that specializes in producing books for both children and adults. The company was founded in 1988 and is based in the city of Casale Monferrato, which is located in the Piedmont region of Italy. Piemme is known for its diverse catalog of books, including fiction, non-fiction, and educational titles. Black Basta posted Piemme to its data leak site on October 17th but provided no further details.

Background on Black Basta

Black Basta is a RaaS (Ransomware-as-a-Service) that emerged in early 2022 and is assessed by some researchers to be a revival of the Conti and REvil attack groups. The group routinely exfiltrates sensitive data from victims for double extortion. Black Basta engages in highly targeted attacks, and likely only works with a limited group of approved affiliates. Considering they just emerged in the spring of 2022, Black Basta quickly became one of the most prolific attack groups moving into 2023.

Techniques and Targets

Black Basta was observed leveraging unique TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) for ingress, lateral movement, data exfiltration, and deploying ransomware payloads. Ransom demands vary depending on the targeted organization with reports that they can be as high as $2 million dollars. The Black Basta RaaS continues to evolve their platform, with ransomware payloads that can infect systems running both Windows and Linux systems by exploiting vulnerabilities in VMware ESXi running on enterprise servers.

Black Basta ransomware is written in C++, 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. In some cases, Black Basta leverages malware strains like Qakbot and exploits including PrintNightmare during the infection process. Black Basta also favors abuse of insecure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) deployments.

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