Disclosure context

About genesis

Genesis is a recently emerged ransomware group that was first observed in October 2025, operating with apparent financial motivations based on their targeting patterns across multiple high-value sectors. The group has demonstrated a relatively aggressive operational tempo since emergence, accumulating 54 documented victims within a short timeframe. Given the limited public documentation available from established threat intelligence sources regarding this newly identified group, specific details about their country of origin, organizational structure, and precise attack methodologies remain under investigation by security researchers. The group's targeting patterns indicate a preference for victims in the United States and United Kingdom, with additional activity observed in Malaysia and Spain, suggesting either a broad operational scope or the use of automated targeting tools that do not discriminate by geography. Their sector targeting reveals a focus on healthcare, manufacturing, business services, and financial services organizations, indicating they may prioritize entities with both high revenue potential and critical operational dependencies that increase pressure for ransom payment. Due to the group's recent emergence and limited reporting from major threat intelligence organizations such as Mandiant, CISA, or FBI, comprehensive details regarding their specific encryption methods, initial access vectors, data exfiltration practices, or notable high-profile campaigns have not yet been publicly documented. Genesis remains an active threat as of current reporting, though their operational longevity and potential connections to established ransomware ecosystems continue to be assessed by the cybersecurity community. The group has been linked to 82 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 21, 2025; most recent post May 19, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

May 11, 2026HostBooks (HOT!) listed by genesison the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Business Services sector, which has 2,640 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, HostBooks (HOT!) is reported in US, a country with 2,713 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

HostBooks (HOT!)

Claimed by genesis · listed 9 days ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
May 11, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: genesis
Status: Data leaked
Country: US
Sector: Business Services
Listed on leak site: May 11, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

HostBooks is an India-based accounting and ERP software provider founded in 2009, headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana. The company offers cloud accounting, expense management, invoicing, inventory management, payroll, and AI-driven ERP solutions marketed under the 'Agentic AI' brand. It serves enterprise clients across sectors including hospitality, food and beverage, retail, distribution, and manufacturing.

Industry: Accounting & ERP Software
Address: 1st Floor, Nimai Tower, 412-415, Udyog Vihar Phase 4, Sector 18, Gurugram, Haryana 122015, India
Founded: 2009

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The group claims exfiltration of 2 TB of regulated and highly sensitive data at scale, including valid credit card data (PII/financial), payroll records, personal customer data from multiple companies, and financial records — meeting the threshold for critical severity due to confirmed exfiltration of regulated financial and personal data affecting third-party customers.

The genesis ransomware group claims to have exfiltrated approximately 2 TB of data from HostBooks, including financial data, personal customer data, payroll data, valid credit card data, contracts, QuickBooks files, network user folders, and operational data from the company fileserver. A file listing has been published on the group's onion site.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Financial data
Personal data of customers
Payroll data
Operational data
QuickBooks files
Valid credit card data
Contract data
Company fileserver data
Network user folders
Repositories of customer company data

The group's post references roughly 1 proof file.

What the group claims

An accounting software provider.

The leak post

captured from the group's site

Founded in 2009, HostBooks is an accounting software provider. The company's software features cloud accounting, expense management, cloud storage, invoicing, reconciliations, inventory management, data import/export, financial reports and a client management portal.

```
2 Tb of accessible data.

Repositories of customers data, including private data of other companies, such as:
- Financial Data.
- Personal data of customers.
- Payroll Data.
- Operational Data.
- Quick books.
- Valid CC Data!!
- Contract Data.
- Data from company fileserver. 
- Network Users Folders.

```

[Download The List of Company Files](http://genesis6ixpb5mcy4kudybtw5op2wqlrkocfogbnenz3c647ibqixiad.onion/download/1c2c9febc6cc64f1156b.txt)

Screenshot of the leak post

Sources

Victim sitehostbooks.com
Leak posthttp://genesis6ixpb5mcy4kudybtw5op2wqlrkocfogbnenz3c647ibqixiad.onion/1c2c9febc6cc64f1156b/

Source

Indexed 9 days 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.