BlackByte'i lunavaragrupp, millel on seosed Contiga, on pärast vaheaega uuesti esile kerkinud uue sotsiaalmeedia kohalolekuga Twitteris ja uute väljapressimismeetoditega, mis on laenatud tuntumalt LockBit 3.0 jõugult.
Aruannete kohaselt lunavaragrupp kasutab erinevaid Twitteri käepidemeid to promote the updated extortion strategy, leak site, and data auctions. The new scheme lets victims to pay to extend the publishing of their stolen data by 24 hours ($5,000), download the data ($200,000) or destroy all the data ($300,000). It's a strategy the LockBit 3.0 grupp juba teerajajaks.
"It is not surprising BlackByte is taking a page out of LockBit's book by not only announcing a version 2 of their ransomware operation but also adopting the pay to delay, download, or destroy extortion model," says Nicole Hoffman, senior cyber-threat intelligence analyst at Digital Shadows, who calls the market for ransomware groups "competitive" and explains LockBit is one of the most prolific and active ransomware groups globally.
Hoffman lisab, et on võimalik, et BlackByte püüab saavutada konkurentsieelist või pälvida meedia tähelepanu, et oma tegevust värbada ja kasvatada.
"Although the topeltväljapressimise mudel is not broken by any means, this new model may be a way for groups to introduce multiple revenue streams," she says. "It will be interesting to see if this new model becomes a trend among other ransomware groups or just a fad that is not widely adopted."
Oliver Tavakoli, CTO at Vectra, calls this approach an "interesting business innovation."
"It allows smaller payments to be collected from victims who are almost certain they won’t pay the ransom but want to hedge for a day or two as they investigate the extent of the breach," he says.
John Bambenek, Netenrichi peamine ohukütt, juhib tähelepanu sellele, et lunavaranäitlejad on oma tulu maksimeerimiseks mänginud ringi erinevate mudelitega.
"This almost looks like an experiment on if they can get lower tiers of money," he says. "I just don't know why anyone would pay them anything except for destroying all the data. That said, attackers, like any industry, are experimenting with business models all the time."
Üldise taktikaga häirete tekitamine
BlackByte has remained one of the more common ransomware variants, infecting organizations worldwide and previously employing a worm capability similar to Conti's precursor Ryuk. But Harrison Van Riper, senior intelligence analyst at Red Canary, notes that BlackByte is just one of several ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operations that have the potential to cause a lot of disruption with relatively common tactics and techniques.
"Like most ransomware operators, the techniques BlackByte uses are not particularly sophisticated, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t impactful," he says. "The option to extend the victim's timeline is likely an effort to get at least some sort of payment from victims who may want extra time for a variety of reasons: to determine legitimacy and scope of the data theft or continue ongoing internal discussion on how to respond, to name a couple of reasons."
Tavakoli ütleb, et küberturvalisuse spetsialistid peaksid BlackByte'i nägema vähem kui üksikut staatilist tegutsejat, vaid rohkem kui kaubamärki, millega võib igal ajal olla seotud uus turunduskampaania; ta märgib, et rünnakute läbiviimise aluseks olevad tehnikad muutuvad harva.
"The precise malware or entry vector utilized by a given ransomware brand may change over time, but the sum of techniques used across all of them are pretty constant," he says. "Get your controls in place, ensure you have detection capabilities for attacks which target your valuable data, and run simulated attacks to test your people, processes and procedures."
BlackByte sihib kriitilist infrastruktuuri
Bambenek ütleb, et kuna BlackByte on teinud mõningaid vigu (nt viga maksete vastuvõtmisel uuel saidil), võib see tema vaatenurgast olla oskuste tasemel pisut madalam kui teistel.
"However, open source reporting says they are still compromising big targets, including those in critical infrastructure," he says. "The day is coming when a significant infrastructure provider is taken down via ransomware that will create more than just a supply chain issue than we saw with Colonial Pipeline."
In February, the FBI and US Secret Service released a ühine küberturvalisuse nõuanne BlackByte'is, hoiatades, et lunavara juurutanud ründajad olid nakatanud organisatsioone vähemalt kolmes USA kriitilise infrastruktuuri sektoris.
