Qilin takes responsibility for disruptive Asahi breach

Leading Japanese brewery company Asahi Group Holdings was claimed to have been breached by the Qilin ransomware gang in an attack that resulted in extensive data exfiltration, Infosecurity Magazine reports. Qilin admitted to having pilfered 27 GB of data from Asahi, including financial records, budgets, plans, budgets, development forecasts, and documents with employees' personal details, according to Comparitech. Asahi has not acknowledged Qilin's assertions but recently confirmed data compromise stemming from a ransomware intrusion that impacted domestic production, as it disclosed ongoing service restoration. Separate reports from ZeroFox and the NCC Group revealed Qilin as the most active ransomware group this year, accounting for 16% of all ransomware incidents in August and claiming 227 attacks in the third quarter. The group which also claimed targeting Japanese firms Nissan Creative Box, Osaki Medical, and Shinko Plastics this year operates as a ransomware-as-a-service enterprise, offering affiliates access to its infrastructure and tools in exchange for a 1520% share of ransom payments.