Was Access Search hit by ransomware?

Access Search was listed by the sinobi ransomware operation (United States), and stolen data was published on the group's leak site. Darkfield tracks this disclosure with the original leak post, screenshot and group context.

Who is the sinobi ransomware group?

sinobi is a ransomware operator tracked by Darkfield. See the full operator dossier for its known victims, sectors targeted, IOCs and leak-site infrastructure.

What data was leaked in the Access Search breach?

sinobi published data attributed to Access Search. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Access Search

Claimed by Sinobi · listed 8 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedNov 24, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Sinobi
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Listed on leak site: Nov 24, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Access Search, Inc. (ASI) is a Chicago-based executive search and recruiting firm specializing in accounting and finance professionals. The firm's recruiters have backgrounds at Big 4 accounting firms and Fortune 500 companies, and focus on placing carefully screened business professionals with client organizations. ASI draws on its team's collective industry experience to serve clients across the financial and corporate sectors.

Industry: Executive Search & Recruiting (Accounting & Finance)
Address: Chicago, Illinois, United States

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data is marked as published (disclosed_status: data_published), indicating confirmed exfiltration and public release. As a recruiting firm, ASI likely holds sensitive PII for both job candidates and corporate clients, including financial and personal background information, elevating the severity to high.

The ransomware group Sinobi has published data related to Access Search, Inc., indicating exfiltration and disclosure of company data. The leak post does not specify the volume of data or enumerate specific file categories beyond the company description.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Company and client records
Candidate/applicant data
Recruiter and employee information
Business communications

What the group claims

Access Search, Inc. was founded with one simple mission: to be an honest, diligent, and knowledgeable search firm. With that goal in mind, we assembled the organization that exists today. We take great pride in our team. Each recruiter at ASI has several years of recruiting experience coupled with years of valuable experience in Big 4 public accounting and/or Fortune 500 finance. We come from some of Chicago's finest employers including Andersen Consulting, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Baxter International, Platinum Technology International, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Unilever, Cardinal Heath, and Sears Roebuck & Company. Our recruiters draw upon their collective knowledge to present our clients with carefully screened and informed business professionals.

Sources

Leak posthttp://sinobi6rlec6f2bgn6rd72xo7hvds4a5ajiu2if4oub2sut7fg3gomqd.onion/leaks/6923110d88b6823fa2dbdefe

Source

Indexed 8 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.

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Disclosure context

About sinobi

Based on the limited publicly available information, Sinobi appears to be a recently emerged ransomware operation first observed in July 2025, with financial motivations evidenced by their targeting of 268 victims across multiple sectors. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, and there is no confirmed information regarding whether they operate as a Ransomware-as-a-Service model or as an independent entity. Their attack methodology and technical capabilities have not been extensively documented by major security research organizations, though their targeting patterns suggest a broad opportunistic approach rather than highly selective operations. The group demonstrates a preference for targeting organizations in the United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy, with a focus on manufacturing, healthcare, construction, and technology sectors, suggesting they may exploit common vulnerabilities across these industries rather than deploying sophisticated, sector-specific attack vectors. No major high-profile campaigns or significant law enforcement actions against Sinobi have been publicly reported by CISA, FBI, or established threat intelligence firms. Given the recent emergence timeline and lack of extensive public documentation, the group's current operational status and long-term trajectory remain unclear, though the substantial victim count suggests continued activity as of the last available reporting period. The group has been linked to 274 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 5, 2025; most recent post May 8, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

November 24, 2025Access Search listed by sinobion the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by sinobi

sinobi has been linked to 274 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full sinobi dossier →

Sector and geography

Geographically, Access Search is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by sinobi means Access Search appeared on a ransomware extortion site and data attributed to it has been published. If this is your organisation, or a supplier you depend on, the priority is to confirm the intrusion and contain it before the window to act closes.

Engage your incident-response team and preserve forensic evidence before remediating — do not wipe affected systems first.
Force a password reset and revoke active sessions for exposed accounts; rotate any credentials, API keys or certificates that may have been in the stolen data.
Assess regulatory notification duties (GDPR, NIS2, sector regulators) — many carry a 72-hour reporting clock from awareness.
Report the incident to your national CERT, CISA (United States), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on sinobi's leak site and across paste and breach channels, and brief downstream partners who may be exposed through you.

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.