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BlackByte is a financially motivated ransomware operation and associated malware family active since at least 2021. It is commonly tracked as a ransomware-as-a-service ecosystem in which operators and affiliates conduct intrusions leading to data theft, encryption, and extortion. The group has targeted organizations across multiple sectors and geographies, including enterprises and public-sector entities, and has been associated with double-extortion activity involving both file encryption and threatened publication of stolen data. BlackByte intrusions have been observed using common ransomware tradecraft such as exploitation of exposed services and vulnerabilities for initial access, credential theft, privilege escalation, lateral movement, defense evasion, and exfiltration prior to encryption. Reported techniques associated with the actor include PowerShell execution, exploitation for privilege escalation, process injection, and persistence through Windows services. Public reporting has also linked BlackByte-affiliated activity to infrastructure used for hosting victim data and to broader overlaps within the ransomware affiliate ecosystem. The name "hecamede" appears as an alias in the available reporting, but BlackByte is the most widely recognized name used by defenders and incident responders. BlackByte should be understood primarily as a cybercriminal ransomware actor rather than a nation-state threat actor. While ransomware ecosystem relationships and infrastructure overlaps with other groups have been discussed publicly, only the core characterization of BlackByte as a financially motivated extortion operation is high confidence.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
50 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
11 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
6 additional families tracked in Mallory.
8 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 8 of them exploited in the wild.
This analytic detects attempts to create an "ESX Admins" group using the Windows net.exe or net1.exe commands. This activity may indicate an attempt to exploit the VMware ESXi Active Directory Integration Authentication Bypass vulnerability (CVE-2024-37085). Attackers can use this method to gain unauthorized access to ESXi hosts by recreating the "ESX Admins" group after its deletion from Active Directory.
BlackByte operators gained initial access by exploiting the ProxyShell vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) present on the customer’s Microsoft Exchange server... ProxyShell exploitation allows an adversary to gain pre-authentication remote code execution.
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.
BlackByte operators gained initial access by exploiting the ProxyShell vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) present on the customer’s Microsoft Exchange server.
BlackByte operators gained initial access by exploiting the ProxyShell vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) present on the customer’s Microsoft Exchange server.
3 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
41 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 only as an annotated threat actor associated with the ATT&CK technique Process Injection (T1055) in a Splunk detection entry; no campaign or activity is described.
Mentioned only as an annotation/tag associated with the ATT&CK technique Process Injection (T1055); no campaign or activity by this group is described in the content.
Mentioned only in an annotation/list associated with the detection content; no actor-specific activity is described in this reference.
Listed in annotations alongside ATT&CK technique metadata for the detection; no campaign or activity is described in this reference.
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.