The Gentlemen (aka Storm-2697) is a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) program active since at least July 2025. Public reporting indicates that the operators were likely active months earlier as an affiliate (known as ArmCorp) of Qilin RaaS, which Unit 42 tracks as Spikey Scorpius. Their ransomware variants are written in both C and Go programming languages, enabling the threat actors to spread their encryptors across different operating systems and virtual infrastructure.
Additional public reporting revealed that the operators (roughly 20 of them) likely morphed from a private entity into a RaaS model on or about September 2025. While traditional RaaS models typically offer affiliates a 70% to 80% cut of paid ransoms, The Gentlemen offer an unprecedented 90% payout.
Read more…
Source: Palo Alto Unit 42
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Scattered Spider hackers are targeting US critical infrastructure via VMware attacks
July 28, 2025
The infamous ScatteredSpider ransomware group is using VMware instances to target critical infrastructure organizations in the US, researchers have warned. In the campaign, the hackers do not exploit any vulnerabilities, but instead go for “aggressive, creative, and particularly skilled” social engineering. They first reach out to their victim’s IT desk, impersonating an employee, and asking for ...
- Russia: Aeroflot cancels dozens of flights after hacker attack paralyzes IT systems
July 28, 2025
Russia’s Aeroflot airline has cancelled 49 round-trip flights to and from Moscow due to an IT system failure, the air carrier reported. The press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia said that the airline’s information systems were brought down by a hacker attack. The carrier warned of adjustments to its flight schedule, including delays ...
- NASCAR confirms user data breach following Medusa ransomware attack
July 28, 2025
NASCAR has confirmed it suffered a cyberattack and a data breach in April 2025 which saw personal information of racing fans allegedly stolen. The organization filed data breach reports with attorneys general in multiple US states, describing what had happened, and how it responded, noting the attack started on March 31, 2025, and was spotted – ...
- In-Depth Analysis of an Obfuscated Web Shell Script
July 26, 2025
This analysis is a follow-up to the investigation titled ‘Intrusion into Middle East Critical National Infrastructure’, conducted by the FortiGuard Incident Response Team (FGIR), which investigated a long-term cyber intrusion targeting critical national infrastructure (CNI) in the Middle East. The report revealed that threat actors had installed numerous web shell servers on the compromised system. In ...
- Allianz Life says ‘majority’ of customers’ personal data stolen in cyberattack
July 26, 2025
U.S. insurance giant Allianz Life has confirmed to TechCrunch that hackers stole the personal information of the “majority” of its customers, financial professionals, and employees during a mid-July data breach. When reached by TechCrunch, Allianz Life spokesperson Brett Weinberg confirmed the breach. “On July 16, 2025, a malicious threat actor gained access to a third-party, cloud-based ...
- Dating safety app Tea breached, exposing 72,000 user images
July 26, 2025
Tea, an app that allows women to post anonymous comments about men they’ve supposedly dated, announced Friday that it has suffered a data breach, with hackers gaining access to 72,000 images. That number includes 13,000 selfies and photo IDs submitted for account verification, as well as 59,000 images from posts, comments, and direct messages, the company ...