According to Reuters, the international ransomware gang BlackCat has targeted the Italian asset manager Azimut.
According to Reuters, the company announced the cyberattack on the same day and said that it had refused any demands for a ransom payment.
The company stated that the attack had no negative effects on customer information:
During routine monitoring, Azimut discovered unauthorized access to its IT systems. It quickly alerted the appropriate authorities and started an internal security procedure, which successfully contained the attack’s effects.
BlackCat was identified as the group responsible for the attack by California-based Palo Alto Networks and Israeli cybersecurity startup DarkFeed. According to the latter organization, BlackCat took more than 500 GB of data from Azimut.
It is believed that BlackCat uses cryptography.
Due to the relative difficulty of tracking blockchain transactions, the majority of ransomware teams rely on bitcoins as payment.
BlackCat isn’t the only example. In 2022, the cybersecurity firm SafeBreach reported that the organization demanded ransom payments in the range between $400,000 and $3,000,000 in Monero (XMR) and Bitcoin (BTC). Additionally, it suggested that victims pay an additional 15% fee if they pay with Bitcoin.
The group apparently bases this additional fee on the fact that Bitcoin offers fewer privacy choices than Monero. BlackCat would want to use a coin mixer to launder money and pay the associated fees in order to keep the identity of illegal Bitcoin transactions private. According to independent analyses from the cybersecurity division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the group does in fact move Bitcoin via mixers.
Despite BlackCat’s dependency on bitcoin, neither cryptocurrency nor the amount of cryptocurrency BlackCat wanted from Azimut was mentioned in Reuters’ report.
By the way, Azimut has invested in blockchain projects alongside Alps Blockchain, a mining company, and Diaman Companions, a largely cryptocurrency-focused asset manager.
There is no proof that these acts are connected to BlackCat’s decision to concentrate on businesses, as the cybercrime organisation has targeted many non-crypto companies. The organisation most recently accused Estelle Lauder, a cosmetics company, of being attacked.
Italian asset manager being targeted by a ransomware organization known to use Monero and Bitcoin, according to CryptoSlate.
