BlackBasta Ransomware Attack on Prudent Publishing

BlackBasta claimed a ransomware attack on Prudent Publishing. The group did not disclose any further information about the attack or the compromised data. Prudent Publishing is the owner of the Gallery Collection and is the leading business-to-business online and mail-order publisher of premium quality personalized Christmas, Holiday, and Everyday greeting cards in the United States.

Who is Black Basta?

Black Basta is a RaaS (Ransomware-as-a-Service) that emerged in early 2022 and is assessed by some researchers to be an offshoot of the disbanded Conti and REvil attack groups. The group routinely exfiltrates sensitive data from victims for additional extortion leverage. Black Basta engages in highly targeted attacks and is assessed to only work with a limited group of highly vetted affiliate attackers.

Black Basta has quickly became one of the most prolific attack groups in 2023 and was observed leveraging unique TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) for ingress, lateral movement, data exfiltration, and deployment of ransomware payloads. Ransom demands vary depending on the targeted organization with reports that they can be as high as $2 million dollars.

It is estimated that Black Basta exceeded $107 million in ransom revenue from more than 90 victims in less than two years. Black Basta continues to evolve their RaaS platform, with ransomware payloads that can infect systems running both Windows and Linux systems.

Technical Details of Black Basta Ransomware

Black Basta is particularly adept at exploiting vulnerabilities in VMware ESXi running on enterprise servers. Black Basta ransomware is written in C++, can target both Windows and Linux systems, encrypts data with ChaCha20, and then the encryption key is encrypted with RSA-4096 for rapid encryption of the targeted network.

In some cases, Black Basta leverages malware strains like Qakbot and exploits such as PrintNightmare during the infection process. Black Basta also favors abuse of insecure Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) deployments, one of the leading infection vectors for ransomware.

Targeted Sectors and Double Extortion Scheme

Black Basta typically targets manufacturing, transportation, construction and related services, telecommunications, the automotive sector, and healthcare providers. Black Basta also employs a double extortion scheme and maintains an active leaks website where they post exfiltrated data if an organization declines to pay the ransom demand.