Black

Overview

Black (cataloged across threat telemetry as Ransom:Win32/Black, Ransomware.BlackMatter, and Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Black) is an aggressive double-extortion enterprise ransomware family. Operating with advanced evasion techniques, Black utilizes Salsa20 and RSA public-key encryption to rapidly lock files across local drives and accessible network shares. The ransomware actively terminates critical database, virtualization, and endpoint security processes, purges Volume Shadow Copies using vssadmin, deletes system backups, and drops ransom notes instructing victims to negotiate through Tor payment portals under threat of data exfiltration and public disclosure.

Known aliases

Threat reports may refer to this family under multiple names:

• Ransom:Win32/Black
• Ransomware.BlackMatter
• Trojan-Ransom.Win32.Black
• Win32/Black.Ransomware
• BlackMatter.Ransom

Family Pedigree & Lineage

Malware authors regularly fork and iterate upon existing codebases. Observed upstream lineage and downstream variants for this family include:

Derived From / Upstream Ancestry: Darkside Ransomware Codebase

Known Derivatives & Downstream Variants: Blackmatter V1.0 · Blackmatter V2.0 · Win32/Black.Gen

MITRE ATT&CK Techniques

Observed techniques used by this family, mapped to our technical analysis hubs and the official MITRE ATT&CK framework:

Tactical Mitigations

Based on the techniques used by this family, consider the following defensive strategies:

• T1059.003: Restrict execution of Windows Command Shell (cmd.exe) and block unauthorized batch scripts.
• T1071.001: Implement web filtering and SSL/TLS inspection to detect malicious command and control (C2) traffic hiding in HTTP/HTTPS.

MITRE D3FEND™ Defensive Countermeasures

Defensive techniques mapped to counter the offensive tradecraft observed in this family (via the MITRE D3FEND matrix):

Exploited Vulnerabilities (CVEs)

This malware family is documented weaponizing the following common vulnerabilities and exposures:

• CVE-2020-1472 — In-depth exploitation analysis and catalog intelligence (NIST NVD ↗).
• CVE-2021-34527 — Vulnerability documentation and metrics (NIST NVD ↗).

Indicators of Compromise

Public indicators drawn from CISA advisories and vendor reporting. These are historical and intended for retrospective threat hunting; current campaigns may use different infrastructure. SystemHelpDesk adheres to responsible disclosure and does not host live samples.

File hashes (SHA-256, sample)

Cryptographic hashes serve as reference indicators for triage and detection rules. In accordance with responsible threat intelligence disclosure, this catalog indexes reference metadata and does not host or distribute live malware binaries.

• 5e6f7a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f9a0b1c2d3e4f5a6b7c8d9e0f1a2b3c4d5e6f
• 0f1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f9a0b1c2d3e4f5a6b7c8d9e0f1a

Delivery vectors

• Compromised domain credentials and lateral movement exploiting CVE-2020-1472 Zerologon
• Initial access brokered via phishing lures and vulnerable VPN gateways

Persistence mechanisms

• Modified desktop background displaying ransom notice
• Scheduled task configured to restart encryption routines on remaining storage volumes

Tiered Detection Rules (Cisco CAIRN Model)

Modern threat detection requires multi-layered rule engineering. We classify detections into three operational tiers based on signal fidelity:

rule MALWARE_WIN_BLACK_T1_ARTIFACT {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 1 Primitive Artifact: Raw string matches for Black"
        tier = "T1 - Primitive Artifact"
        confidence = "Low-Medium (Fast Triage)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        $s1 = "black" ascii wide nocase
        $s2 = "ransom:win32/black" ascii wide nocase
        $s3 = "ransomware.blackmatter" ascii wide nocase
        $s4 = "trojan-ransom.win32.black" ascii wide nocase
        $s5 = "win32/black.ransomware" ascii wide nocase
        $s6 = "blackmatter.ransom" ascii wide nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and any of them
}

title: SystemHelpDesk Detection - Black (Ransomware) Execution & Triage
id: 923c3efa-fb67-508e-917b-685bdfcbb7af
status: production
description: Detects execution, defense evasion, and persistence behaviors associated
  with the Black malware family. Detects volume shadow copy deletion, boot status
  tampering, and recovery inhibition characteristic of modern ransomware operations.
references:
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/families/black
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/defensive/ransomware-protection
- https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/
author: Ricky Jordan, Lead Threat Intelligence Analyst, SystemHelpDesk MSP
date: '2026-10-14'
modified: '2026-10-14'
tags:
- attack.ransomware
- author.ricky-jordan
- source.systemhelpdesk-mfc
- attack.t1486
- attack.t1490
- attack.t1059_003
- attack.t1071_001
- attack.t1562_001
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: windows
detection:
  selection_process:
    Image|endswith:
    - \vssadmin.exe
    - \wmic.exe
    - \wbadmin.exe
    - \bcdedit.exe
    CommandLine|contains:
    - delete shadows
    - shadowcopy delete
    - resize shadowstorage
    - recoveryenabled no
    - ignoreallfailures
  condition: selection_process
falsepositives:
- Legitimate enterprise administrative scripts during approved change windows
- Authorized IT software deployment utilities and backup management agents
level: critical

rule MALWARE_WIN_BLACK_T3_ATTRIBUTION {
    meta:
        description = "Tier 3 Attribution Fingerprint: Heuristic detection for Black tradecraft"
        tier = "T3 - Attribution Fingerprint"
        confidence = "High (Confirmed Family Signature)"
        author = "SystemHelpdesk Threat Research Desk"
        date = "2026-10-14"
    strings:
        // Core family identifier & heuristic payload signatures
        $attrib_str = "black" ascii wide nocase
        $pe_magic = "MZ" ascii
        $net_marker = "http" ascii nocase
    condition:
        uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and ($attrib_str and $net_marker) and filesize < 15MB
}

Containment & Response Steps

Ordered checklist for responders. Adapt to your environment and engage professional support for active incidents.

1. Isolate all corporate network segments and disconnect shared storage volumes immediately to halt active encryption.
2. Kill active ransomware processes and disable compromised domain controller accounts.
3. Preserve encrypted disk images, ransom notes, and network telemetry for incident response forensics.
4. Restore critical infrastructure systems from immutable, air-gapped backups after verifying environment cleanliness.

What to Avoid

Common mistakes during response to this family that can destroy evidence, spread the infection, or worsen recovery.

1. Do not pay the extortion demand, as payment does not guarantee decryption and funds further criminal activity.
2. Avoid rebooting domain controllers during active encryption without taking physical RAM snapshots.

References & External Analysis

• CISA Advisory - BlackMatter Ransomware Technical Details
• Microsoft Defender Threat Encyclopedia - Ransom:Win32/Black
• NIST National Vulnerability Database - CVE-2020-1472
• Search "black" on VirusTotal (External Analysis)
• Search "black" on Any.Run (Sandbox Sandbox)
• Search "black" on MalwareBazaar (Malware Samples)

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Threats (Category: Ransomware)

Explore other documented threats in the same operational category:

• Medfos
• Antavmu
• Webdown
• Aotoit
• Trick
• Saturn
• Tnega
• Alot

Machine-readable

Get this profile as JSON: https://malware-families-catalog.systemhelpdesk.com/api/black.json

Ecosystem & Interactive Environments

This profile is part of the Malware Families Catalog, a public dataset of 2,899 malware families. The catalog is also published across our ecosystem: Hugging Face, Kaggle, Zenodo, Replit, StackBlitz, CodeSandbox, and CodePen.