LockBit Ransomware Gang Targets BERG Life Sciences

The LockBit ransomware gang has attacked BERG Life Sciences. BERG Life Sciences is one of Tunisia's largest pharmaceutical laboratories and a leading manufacturer of aerosol drugs. LockBit posted BERG Life Sciences to its data leak site on July 18th but provided no further information.

Background on LockBit

LockBit has been active since 2019 and is enabled with security tool evasion capabilities and an extremely fast encryption speed. LockBit is noted for using a triple extortion model where the victim may also be asked to purchase their sensitive information in addition to paying the ransom demand for decrypting systems. The group continues to improve its attack platform and introduced LockBit in June of 2022, which bore some similarities to the BlackMatter ransomware. The latest version incorporates advanced anti-analysis features and is a threat to both Windows and Linux systems.

Technical Details

LockBit employs a Base64-encoded hash and an RSA public key in its configuration and hashes it with MD5. LockBit also created its own bug bounty program.

Target and Tactics

LockBit tends to target larger enterprises across any industry vertical with the ability to pay high ransom demands but also tends to favor Healthcare targets. LockBit is a well-run affiliate program and has an excellent reputation amongst the affiliate (attacker) community for the platform's maturity and for offering high payouts of as much as 75% of the attack proceeds. LockBit is known to employ multiple extortion techniques, including data exfiltration, to compel payment.