Disclosure context

About anubis

Anubis is a recently emerged ransomware group that began operations in February 2025, primarily motivated by financial gain through encryption and extortion attacks. The group has demonstrated rapid expansion, accumulating 65 documented victims within a short operational timeframe. Given the group's recent emergence, limited information is publicly available regarding their specific country of origin, organizational structure, or confirmed affiliations with other cybercriminal entities, though their operational patterns suggest they may operate as an independent group or small-scale ransomware-as-a-service operation. Their attack methodology appears to focus on opportunistic targeting across multiple geographic regions, with victims concentrated primarily in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France, indicating either English-language proficiency or the use of automated tools that facilitate cross-border operations. The group demonstrates a clear preference for targeting healthcare organizations and manufacturing companies, followed by business services and technology sectors, suggesting they prioritize organizations with critical operational dependencies that may be more likely to pay ransoms quickly. Due to the group's recent emergence in early 2025, there is insufficient publicly documented information from established cybersecurity firms or law enforcement agencies regarding their specific technical capabilities, encryption methods, or whether they employ double or triple extortion tactics involving data theft and leak sites. As of current reporting, Anubis remains an active threat with continued victim acquisition, though the full scope of their capabilities and long-term operational sustainability remains to be determined as security researchers continue to analyze their activities. The group has been linked to 77 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on February 25, 2025; most recent post May 13, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

April 1, 2026Publishers Clearing House listed by anubison the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Consumer Services sector, which has 396 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Publishers Clearing House 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

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Publishers Clearing House

Claimed by anubis · listed 2 months ago

49d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Apr 1, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: anubis
Status: Data leaked
Country: US
Sector: Consumer Services
Listed on leak site: Apr 1, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is a well-known American direct-marketing company headquartered in Jericho, New York, famous for its sweepstakes promotions and prize giveaways. The company operates consumer-facing advertising networks, prize-linked marketing campaigns, and digital media properties targeting mass-market consumers across the United States. PCH has historically maintained large consumer databases as part of its direct-mail and digital marketing operations.

Industry: Sweepstakes, Direct Marketing & Advertising
Founded: 1953

Attack summary

Severity: critical — 1.4 TB / 843,230 files of data from a major direct-marketing company has been fully published. PCH maintains extensive consumer PII databases (names, addresses, purchase history, financial details) at scale, making this a high-probability large-scale regulated PII exposure with data already disclosed publicly.

The Anubis ransomware group claims to have exfiltrated 1.4 TB of data comprising 843,230 files from Publishers Clearing House, categorising the breach under 'Advertising Networks' and describing it as 'the fall of a sweepstakes giant.' The data has been published in full ('OPEN' status).

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Advertising network data
Consumer marketing records
Internal business files
Potentially large-scale consumer PII

What the group claims

The fall of a sweepstakes giant.

The leak post

captured from the group's site

Anubis blog ANUBIS NEWS FAQ ABOUT RULES English English Español Русский 中文 Deutsch BLOGS Accounting / 256 GB / 375,823 files A.R.Ge.Co Accounting firm data breach. OPEN Dental Clinic / 86 GB / 118,389 files Colorado Dental Wellness Center Clients’ medical data breach. OPEN Finance / 185 GB / 202,005 files Marnell Financial Services Data breach at financial company. OPEN Digital payment services and card-accounts / 20 GB Tractial A small but substantial data breach at a fintech company. OPEN Top Secret Patients data / 4,1 TB / 1,099,106 files ViaQuest Large-scale data breach at a care provider for seriously ill patients. OPEN Top Secret Law firm / 1.3 TB / 325,841 files Samuel I. White, PC Significant breach at a law firm. OPEN Fuel supply services / 30 GB / 14,726 files Star Fuels Data breach at a small fuel company. OPEN IT / 26 GB / 42,657 files Tesla Systems Careless IT contractor jeopardizes client security. OPEN [AU] Airlines &amp; Air Services / 57 GB / 68,046 files Shine Aviation Aviation firm data breach. OPEN Advertising Networks / 1.4 TB / 843,230 files Publishers Clearing House The fall of a sweepstakes giant. OPEN Software &amp; Cybersecurity / 33 GB / 30,497 files Scal…

Sources

Leak posthttp://om6q4a6cyipxvt7ioudxt24cw4oqu4yodmqzl25mqd2hgllymrgu4aqd.onion/r/mkP2I4eJZ6ArTLj+PQga6ft0A2OIj29zsLe+fR9VZy7l91bdL0FhNMnNLBaWN8JFITI0ma25IV9KIi0KH39v+mZrd3BMS1FV

Source

Indexed 2 months 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.