Disclosure context

About akira

Akira is a ransomware group that emerged in April 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations and has rapidly established itself as a significant threat actor with over 1,500 documented victims. The group's country of origin remains unclear, though they operate as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model, recruiting affiliates to conduct attacks while the core group maintains the ransomware infrastructure and negotiation processes. Akira employs multi-faceted attack methodologies including exploitation of VPN vulnerabilities, particularly targeting Cisco VPN appliances, and utilizes living-off-the-land techniques along with legitimate administrative tools to avoid detection, while implementing double extortion tactics by exfiltrating sensitive data before deploying their encryption payload. The group has demonstrated a preference for targeting organizations in the United States, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, and Italy, with a particular focus on manufacturing, business services, technology, and construction sectors, though they have shown willingness to attack various industries. Despite being relatively new to the ransomware landscape, Akira has maintained consistent operations throughout 2023 and into 2024, with law enforcement agencies including CISA and FBI issuing advisories about their activities, though no major disruption operations have been publicly reported against the group as of late 2024. The group has been linked to 1,616 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on April 26, 2023; most recent post May 20, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: Megazord.

Timeline of this disclosure

May 18, 2026Vacu - Lug listed by akiraon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Manufacturing sector, which has 2,458 disclosures indexed across all operators we track.

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

Vaculug

listed as Vacu - Lug · Claimed by akira · listed 3 days ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
May 18, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: akira
Status: Data leaked
Sector: Manufacturing
Listed on leak site: May 18, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Vaculug is a long-established commercial tyre retreading specialist founded in 1950 and based in Grantham, UK. The company distributes Westlake light truck tyres across multiple axle configurations and also markets its own light truck tyre range. It serves the commercial vehicle sector across the United Kingdom.

Industry: Commercial Tyre Retreading & Distribution
Address: Grantham, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom
Founded: 1950

Attack summary

Severity: high — The group claims confirmed exfiltration of 40 GB of data including employee PII, financial records, and legally sensitive documents (NDAs, contracts); data publication is stated as imminent, indicating a high-impact disclosure of significant business and personal data.

Akira claims to have exfiltrated approximately 40 GB of corporate data from Vaculug, including employee personal and financial information, contracts and agreements, financial records, NDAs, and other confidential documents, with publication of the data stated as imminent.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Employee personal information
Employee financial documents
Contracts and agreements
Financial records
NDAs
Confidential corporate documents

What the group claims

Founded in 1950, Vaculug is a long-established commercial tyre retreading specialist based in G rantham. Vacu-Lug distributes Westlake light truck tyres, including the WTX1 trailer axle tyre for Max Load application, the WSR 1 steer axle tyre and the WDR 1 drive axle tyre to suit rims of 17.5" and 19.5". In addition to supplying a range of Westlake light commercial vehicle tyres , Vacu-Lug's has its own light truck tyre range. We will upload 40gb of corporate data soon. Employee personal information (financial and other docs), contracts and agreements, financials, NDA and other confidential docs.

Source

Indexed 3 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.