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BlackByte, also tracked as Hecamede, Black_Byte, and BlackByte_Ransomware_Gang, is a financially motivated ransomware-as-a-service operation targeting large organizations, including healthcare entities. It uses double extortion, combining file encryption with threats to publish stolen information on a dedicated leak site. BlackByte intrusions exploit vulnerabilities in public-facing systems for initial access and have involved Cobalt Strike, credential dumping, network configuration and remote-system discovery, process injection, and PowerShell execution. Its operators archive and exfiltrate victim data through cloud storage services, inhibit system recovery, and disable security tools and firewall protections. BlackByte has also exploited CVE-2024-37085 to obtain administrative access to Active Directory-integrated VMware ESXi hypervisors. A distinguishing technique is bring-your-own-vulnerable-driver exploitation to disable endpoint protection from kernel space. BlackByte has exploited CVE-2019-16098 in the MSI Afterburner driver and abused the Intel Ethernet diagnostics driver associated with CVE-2015-2291. Its endpoint-security bypass implementation has similarities to EDRSandblast and supports disabling more than 1,000 security-product drivers. Attacks investigated in July 2024 deployed vulnerable drivers from MSI Afterburner, Dell, Zemana, and GIGABYTE to facilitate encryption. Early BlackByte ransomware reused encryption keys, allowing recovery of some files encrypted before October 2021.
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.
49 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
17 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
12 additional families tracked in Mallory.
11 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 11 of them exploited in the wild.
VMware ESXi hypervisors joined to an Active Directory domain grant full administrative access by default to members of a domain group named "ESX Admins." Attackers create that group or add controlled accounts to it to gain administrative access.
The BlackByte gang often uses phishing and/or vulnerable unpatched applications or services like vulnerable versions of SonicWall VPN or the ProxyShell vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange servers to gain access to the victim's network.
In recent BlackByte attacks investigated by Symantec, the attackers exploited the ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, and CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyLogon (CVE-2021-26855 and CVE-2021-27065) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Servers to gain initial access.
In recent BlackByte attacks investigated by Symantec, the attackers exploited the ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, and CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyLogon (CVE-2021-26855 and CVE-2021-27065) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Servers to gain initial access.
This detection identifies instances where Windows Explorer.exe spawns PowerShell or cmd.exe processes, particularly focusing on executions initiated by LNK files. This behavior is associated with the ZDI-CAN-25373 Windows shortcut zero-day vulnerability, where specially crafted LNK files are used to trigger malicious code execution through cmd.exe or powershell.exe. This technique has been actively exploited by multiple APT groups in targeted attacks through both HTTP and SMB delivery methods.
6 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
74 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.
Mentioned as abusing a vulnerable Intel Ethernet diagnostics driver to disable endpoint detection and response (EDR). The content does not attribute the analyzed AI-analysis evasion malware to BlackByte.
Mentioned as background for abusing a vulnerable Intel Ethernet diagnostics driver to disable EDR. No connection to the analyzed AI-evasion malware is established.
Listed as a threat group in the detection's technique annotations; no specific operation or malware use is described.
Listed as a threat actor in technique annotations, not described as a malware family in use. No specific campaign or exploitation is attributed to the group.
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.