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

March 24, 2026French Engineering listed by Akiraon the group's public leak site

Data size: 72 GB

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Manufacturing sector, which has 2,458 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, French Engineering is reported in France, a country with 472 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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French Engineering

Claimed by Akira · listed 2 months ago

72 GB

Data size

57d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Mar 24, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Akira
Status: Data leaked
Country: France
Sector: Manufacturing
Listed on leak site: Mar 24, 2026
Data size: 72 GB

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

French Engineering is a consulting firm based in the Pennsylvania/West Virginia/Maryland region offering services in traffic engineering, water resources engineering, and sustainable planning and design. Their work includes traffic data collection, traffic signal design, roadway safety audits, and transportation impact studies. They support new commercial, industrial, and residential development projects.

Industry: Traffic & Transportation Engineering Consulting
Address: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland (specific address not stated)

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The group claims exfiltration of regulated PII at scale including medical records and credit card data alongside financial and legal documents; 72 GB of data is stated as imminent for publication, constituting a confirmed large-scale regulated-data breach.

Akira claims to have exfiltrated 72 GB of corporate data and states it will be published imminently; the data allegedly includes employee PII (passports, driver's licences, addresses, phone numbers, emails, medical records, credit card data), financial records, confidential documents, and NDAs.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Employee passports
Driver's licences
Employee addresses
Phone numbers
Email addresses
Medical records
Credit card data
Financial records
Confidential documents
NDAs

What the group claims

French Engineering offers a range of services in Traffic Engineer ing, Water Resources Engineering, and Sustainable Planning and De sign Consulting in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. The ir services include traffic data collection, traffic signal desig n, roadway safety audits, and transportation impact studies, aime d at supporting new commercial, industrial, and residential devel opments. We will upload 72gb of corporate data soon. Employee documents (p assports, DLs, addresses, phones, emails, medical records, credit cards), financials, confidential docs, NDAs, etc.

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.