Last year in December, malware researchers from Recorded Future and MalwareHunterTeam unearthed ALPHV (aka BlackCat), the first professional ransomware strain that was designed in the Rust programming language.
In this post, we will explore some of the methodologies employed by ransomware developers to target organizations.
According to an analysis published last month by Varonis, BlackCat was observed recruiting operators from multiple ransomware organizations, offering to allow affiliates to leverage the ransomware and keep 80-90% of the ransom payment.
“The group’s leak site, active since early December 2021, has named over twenty victim organizations as of late January 2022, though the total number of victims, including those that have paid a ransom to avoid exposure, is likely greater,” Varonis’s Jason Hill explained.
The attackers leveraging BlackCat, often referred to as the "BlackCat gang,” employ multiple tactics that are becoming increasingly commonplace in the ransomware space. Notably, they use several extortion techniques in some cases, including the siphoning of victim data before ransomware deployment, threats to release data if the ransom is not paid, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
According to cybersecurity researchers at Recorded Future, the ALPHV/BlackCat developer was previously involved with the REvil ransomware gang. Last month, the Russian government disclosed that at the United States’ request it arrested 14 individuals in Russia linked to the REvil ransomware gang.
Still, REvil rolls on despite these actions, according to Paul Roberts at ReversingLabs. “The recent arrests have NOT led to a noticeable change in detections of REvil malicious files,” Roberts wrote. “In fact, detections of files and other software modules associated with the REvil ransomware increased modestly in the week following the arrests by Russia’s FSB intelligence service.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has a standing $10 million reward for information leading to the identification or location of any individuals holding key leadership positions in REvil.
As of December 2021, BlackCat has the seventh-largest number of victims listed on their leak site among ransomware groups tracked by Unit 42 researchers. While Conti (ranked second) has been around in various guises for almost two years, it is surrounded at the top of the chart by emerging families.
