The BlackSuit Ransomware Gang Strikes Octapharma Plasma

Attack Details

The BlackSuit ransomware gang has allegedly attacked Octapharma Plasma and exfiltrated a wealth of data, including data of donors, laboratory data, employee data, and financial/business data. The company was forced to shut down over 150 of its centers late last week. Octapharma Plasma collects, tests and supplies human blood plasma for manufacture into life-saving therapies. It operates more than 190 donation centres in 35 states.

BlackSuit Ransomware Group

BlackSuit is a recently emerged ransomware group and strain that bears a striking resemblance to the Royal ransomware gang, the successor of the infamous Russian-linked Conti operation. Previous reports have been made on the Windows and Linux variants of Royal. Similar to Royal, BlackSuit is known for targeting both Windows and Linux systems. The YARA rules for the Linux variant of BlackSuit also match samples of the Royal Linux variant.

Similarities with Royal Ransomware

It has been stated that Royal and BlackSuit share 98% similarity in function, 99.5% similarity in blocks, and 98.9% similarity in jumps based on the BinDiff comparison tool. Although BlackSuit utilizes command line arguments that function similarly to those used by Royal, the strings employed in the arguments differ. Moreover, BlackSuit uses extra arguments that are not present in Royal ransomware.

Comparison of Windows Variants

Regarding the 32-bit Windows variants of BlackSuit and Royal ransomware families, researchers noted 93.2% similarity in functions, 99.3% similarity in basic blocks, and 98.4% in jumps based on BinDiff. While BlackSuit and Royal Windows variants use different argument strings, the purposes of these arguments are similar. Both BlackSuit and Royal utilize OpenSSL's AES for encryption and leverage comparable intermittent encryption techniques for fast and efficient encryption of victim files.

Ransom Note and Demands

Once the files are encrypted on a victim machine, BlackSuit appends the .blacksuit extension to encrypted files and presents its ransom note. The ransom note contains the ransomware's TOR chat site and a unique ID for each affected victim. BlackSuit threat actors employ a leaks site and a double extortion model, demanding ransom for unlocking files and not leaking stolen information.