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BlackMatter, also styled Black Matter or Black_Matter, was a financially motivated ransomware-as-a-service operation that emerged in July 2021. It recruited affiliates, experienced penetration testers, and initial access brokers, seeking access to corporate networks in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, particularly companies with annual revenues exceeding US$100 million. Despite publicly excluding several sensitive sectors from targeting, it attacked U.S. critical infrastructure organizations, including blood testing facilities and food and agriculture businesses. BlackMatter was a successor to DarkSide, exhibiting substantial continuity in ransomware code, affiliate structure, and public targeting rules. Its early ransomware payloads were nearly identical to the final DarkSide versions. The operation used Windows and Linux encryptors and maintained a data-leak site to support extortion. It was associated with Exmatter, a custom tool for selectively stealing business-relevant files before ransomware deployment. Its malware incorporated partial file encryption, API hashing, anti-debugging, privilege-elevation routines, and WMI-based shadow-copy deletion. Emsisoft privately exploited a flaw in BlackMatter ransomware to recover victims’ files without ransom payments before the operators corrected the weakness. On November 3, 2021, BlackMatter announced its shutdown, citing pressure from local authorities. Existing victims were subsequently transferred to LockBit 2.0 infrastructure, and affiliates migrated to that operation. The FBI also linked ALPHV/BlackCat developers and money launderers to BlackMatter and DarkSide; these personnel links do not establish that the operations were identical.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
58 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
1 malware family attributed to this actor across reporting.
3 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 3 of them exploited in the wild.
CVE-2021-31207 is listed alongside CVE-2021-34473 and CVE-2021-34523 in the historically exploited ProxyShell chain.
ProxyShell is identified as the chain of CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, and CVE-2021-31207, actively exploited by ransomware groups including LockBit and BlackMatter.
CVE-2021-34523 is listed as a component of ProxyShell, an Exchange exploit chain actively used by LockBit and BlackMatter.
72 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Ransomware group cited for historical exploitation of the ProxyShell vulnerability chain against Exchange Server. No involvement in CVE-2026-96940 is stated.
Mentioned as a successor branding of DarkSide.
Mentioned only for comparison of Tor payment site and user verification similarities with Agenda.
RaaS/extortion group operating BlackMatter ransomware against large enterprises, using double extortion, recruiting initial access brokers, and targeting high-revenue corporate networks globally.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.