Hunters ransomware gang says it hacked ICBC London, stole 5M+ files

Ransomware group Hunters International today claimed it successfully breached ICBC London and stole 6.6 TB of data, or 5.2 million files.

ICBC has not confirmed Hunters’ claim, which was posted on the gang’s leak site.

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We do not yet know how much ransom Hunters demanded, whether ICBC will pay it, if the data contained customers’ personal data, or how attackers breached ICBC’s network. Comparitech contacted ICBC London for comment and will update this article if it responds.

ICBC suffered a previous ransomware attack by LockBit in 2023. LockBit told Reuters that ICBC paid a ransom after the attack disrupted trading and corporate email systems.

Who is Hunters International?

Hunters International has claimed 38 confirmed ransomware attacks since it began operating in October 2023, affecting about 1.4 million records.

If confirmed, this attack on ICBC will join two other recently confirmed attacks claimed by Hunters International on financial companies: Quálitas Compañía de Seguros (Mexico) suffered an attack in August 2024 but managed to maintain its operations. Bank Rakyat (Malaysia) confirmed a data breach incident last week following a cyber attack.

Comparitech researchers logged another 127 ransomware attacks claimed by Hunters so far in 2024, but that haven’t been acknowledged by targets.

Ransomware attacks on the financial sector

Ransomware attacks on banks and other financial companies can lock up computer systems used for trading, communication, billing, payroll, and more, disrupting day-to-day operations and causing downtime. Ransomware attacks also often involve data theft. Attacked companies must pay ransoms to restore affected systems and/or prevent the data from being sold or published online.

So far in 2024, we’ve tracked 50 confirmed ransomware attacks on the finance industry worldwide, affecting 28.2 million records. 2024 has been the biggest year yet by records breached in this sector since we began tracking in 2018.

Another 202 ransomware attacks on financial companies have been claimed but not confirmed by victims.

About ICBC London

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) is a Chinese state-owned multinational bank that started in China in 1984 and came to England in 2002. ICBC is the world’s largest bank by total assets, and the third-largest by market capitalization. It has 10.7 million corporate and 720 million individual customers, according to the World Economic Forum.

(h/t Falcon Feeds)