与 Conti 有联系的 BlackByte 勒索软件组织在 Twitter 上出现新的社交媒体以及从更知名的 LockBit 3.0 团伙借来的新勒索方法中断后重新浮出水面。
据报道， 勒索软件组正在使用各种 Twitter 句柄 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 组 已经开创了先河。
"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 补充说，BlackByte 可能正试图获得竞争优势或试图获得媒体关注以招募和发展其业务。
“虽然 双重勒索模式 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.
Netenrich 的主要威胁猎手 John Bambenek 指出，勒索软件攻击者已经使用了各种模型来最大化他们的收入。
"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."
用常见的策略造成干扰
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 表示，网络安全专业人士不应将 BlackByte 视为一个单独的静态参与者，而应更多地将其视为一个可以随时进行新营销活动的品牌。 他指出，发动攻击的一套底层技术很少改变。
"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 瞄准关键基础设施
Bambenek 表示，由于 BlackByte 犯了一些错误（例如在新站点接受付款时出错），在他看来，在技能水平上可能比其他人低一点。
"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 联合网络安全咨询 在 BlackByte 上，警告说部署勒索软件的攻击者已经感染了至少三个美国关键基础设施部门的组织。
