21 November 2024

Ransomware gang Akira leaks unprecedented number of victims’ data in one day

Alexander Martin

Akira, a ransomware-as-a-service gang with a growing profile in the cybercrime underworld, has published a record number of new victims to its darknet leak site in a single day, with 35 published on Monday as of writing, and more apparently still being added.

The criminals, who offer a platform to hackers to enable them to extort victims by stealing and encrypting data, emerged in March 2023 according to the FBI. In its first year of operations, Akira made $42 million from around 250 attacks, the agency said.

The group’s large number of attacks shortly after emerging led experts to believe it is made up of experienced ransomware actors, and it claimed a steady stream of incidents last year, including an attack on cloud hosting services provider Tietoevry.

Named after the Japanese cyberpunk manga, the gang’s leak site is styled like the command line interface on a monochrome computer popular in the 1980s. It contains a “news” section used to extort recent victims and a “leaks” section where data is published if the extortion process fails.

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