Researchers from Cisco have discovered that the BlackByte ransomware group is only disclosing a small portion of its successful attacks on its leak site this year. Talos, the company's cybersecurity department, believes the gang is creating extortion posts for only 20% to 30% of its successful attacks.
The study of the ransomware outfit's leak site shows it posted 41 victims in 2023 but only three so far in 2024. BlackByte has been extremely active this year, but it's unclear why the group hasn't posted any further leaks.
BlackByte has carried out high-profile assaults on local governments in Newburgh, New York, and Augusta, Georgia, as well as organisations such as the San Francisco 49ers and Yamaha.
Researchers from Cisco Talos claimed that their involvement in a number of recent incident response investigations showed how quickly the organisation is evolving and how often it leads the way in exploiting vulnerabilities such as CVE-2024-37085, an ESXi software problem that Microsoft brought to light last month.
“Talos IR observed the threat actor leveraging this vulnerability, which initially received limited attention from the security community, within days of its publication,” the researchers stated. “This highlights the speed with which ransomware groups like BlackByte can adapt their [tactics, techniques and procedures] to incorporate newly disclosed vulnerabilities, and the level of time and effort put into identifying potential avenues for advancing an attack.”
The analysts believe the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) gang is an offshoot of the now-defunct Conti operation, which appeared in late 2021. According to Cisco Talos, BlackByte has a history of searching for and exploiting public-facing vulnerabilities. However, the RaaS model's flexibility "allows threat actors to quickly counter new defensive strategies developed by cybersecurity experts by iterating and updating its tooling.”
Callie Guenther, a Critical Start cyberthreat researcher, stated that the exploitation of CVE-2024-37085 was notable since it targeted VMware ESXi hypervisors, which allow servers to operate many virtual machines and efficiently distribute computing resources. The focus on ESXi hypervisors by Ransomware outfits such as BlackByte is especially troubling because the technology is often vital for firms' IT infrastructure and critical business applications.
“The adoption of the CVE-2024-37085 vulnerability by BlackByte signals an understanding of the value in targeting these systems, as they offer a high return on investment for the attackers in terms of potential ransom payouts,” she added.
