Disclosure context

About Vicesociety

Vicesociety is a ransomware group that emerged in May 2021, primarily motivated by financial gain through targeting critical infrastructure and public service organizations. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undetermined by public threat intelligence reporting, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent ransomware operation rather than a established RaaS model. Vicesociety primarily gains initial access through exploitation of public-facing applications and credential-based attacks, with documented cases showing they particularly focus on compromising remote access services and vulnerable web applications before deploying their ransomware payload across victim networks. The group has demonstrated a clear preference for targeting educational institutions, government agencies, and healthcare organizations, with their 188 documented victims concentrated heavily in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Spain, indicating a focus on English-speaking and Western European entities. While specific high-profile campaigns have not been extensively detailed in major public threat intelligence reports from CISA or FBI advisories, the group's consistent targeting of critical sectors like education and healthcare has drawn attention from security researchers monitoring threats to essential services. Vicesociety remains active as of recent threat intelligence assessments, continuing their operations against similar target sectors with no documented law enforcement disruption or significant operational changes. The group has been linked to 188 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on May 31, 2021; most recent post December 14, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

March 3, 2023HUNOSA listed by Vicesocietyon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Energy & Utilities sector, which has 6 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, HUNOSA is reported in Spain, a country with 212 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Grupo Hunosa

listed as HUNOSA · Claimed by Vicesociety · listed 3 years ago

39m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Mar 3, 2023
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Vicesociety
Status: Data leaked
Country: Spain
Sector: Energy & Utilities
Listed on leak site: Mar 3, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Grupo Hunosa is a Spanish state-linked business group headquartered in Asturias, Spain, that has transitioned from decades as a benchmark coal-mining company into a diversified group focused on energy services, renewable energy, environmental restoration, industrial safety, and mining engineering consultancy. It also operates an accredited testing laboratory (HunosaLab), promotes economic development in the central Asturian coalfield region, and manages significant industrial heritage assets.

Industry: Energy Transition & Mining Services
Address: Asturias, Spain

Attack summary

Severity: high — Vice Society has published data (confirmed exfiltration) from a state-linked strategic energy and utilities operator in Spain. The company handles sensitive operational, engineering, safety, and environmental data, and its strategic role in energy transition and public-sector ties elevate the potential impact beyond a typical commercial breach.

Vice Society claims to have attacked Hunosa and has published data (disclosed status: data_published), indicating exfiltration of company data; no ransom amount was stated and the specific volume of exfiltrated data was not quantified in the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Internal company documents
Operational data
Employee/HR records
Engineering and project files
Environmental and safety records
Financial records

What the group claims

We are a business group that transforms, like energy. After decades as a benchmark in a strategic sector such as coal, we have become a company focused on energy, energy services and the environment.

Sources

Victim sitehunosa.es/

Source

Indexed 3 years ago

This page surfaces a public ransomware disclosure indexed by Darkfield. Original posts come from the operator's own leak site; we cross-check against ransomware.live, RansomLook and RansomWatch where applicable. Share this URL freely.