Black Basta attack disrupts BT unit’s servers

Major UK multinational telecommunications firm BT Group had some BT Conferencing business division servers taken down following an attack that was admitted to have been conducted by the Black Basta ransomware-as-a-service operation, reports BleepingComputer.

While BT Group emphasized that only its BT Conferencing platform had been subjected to an attempted compromise that did not affect its other services, Black Basta claimed to have exfiltrated 500 GB of data from the firm's servers, including user information, personal documents, nondisclosure agreements, financial and organizational details, and other confidential files. In a bid to legitimize its assertions, Black Basta also exposed folder listings and hiring document screenshots while threatening to leak the entire data trove next week should BT Group refuse to pay the demanded ransom. Such a development comes after Black Basta was reported by the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to have targeted more than 500 organizations worldwide, including Ascension, ABB, and the American Dental Association.