Was Viking Therapeutics hit by ransomware?

Viking Therapeutics was listed by the ALPHV/BlackCat 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 ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group?

ALPHV/BlackCat 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 Viking Therapeutics breach?

ALPHV/BlackCat published data attributed to Viking Therapeutics. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Viking Therapeutics

Claimed by ALPHV/BlackCat · listed 3 years ago

31m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedDec 19, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: ALPHV/BlackCat
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Healthcare
Listed on leak site: Dec 19, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Viking Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company founded in September 2012 and headquartered in San Diego, California. The company develops novel therapies for metabolic and endocrine disorders, with a focus on obesity and lipid management through compounds such as VK2735 (a dual GLP-1/GIP agonist) and VK2809 (a thyroid hormone receptor beta agonist).

Industry: Biopharmaceutical — Clinical-Stage Development
Address: 9920 Pacific Heights Blvd, Suite 500, San Diego, CA 92121
Founded: 2012

Attack summary

Severity: high — A publicly traded clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company is a high-value target. Confirmed data publication by a major ransomware group (ALPHV/BlackCat) indicates exfiltration of sensitive business data, including likely pre-clinical research, trial data, and proprietary drug development information. Despite lack of explicit detail in the post, the combination of confirmed breach, data publication, and the sensitive nature of clinical-stage drug development warrants 'high' severity.

ALPHV/BlackCat claims to have compromised Viking Therapeutics and published data. The post does not explicitly state whether the attack involved encryption, exfiltration, or both, nor does it specify which data categories were accessed or exposed.

high

What the group claims

Viking Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, which engages in the development of therapies for metabolic and endocrine disorders. The company was founded by Brian Lian and Michael A. Dinerman on September 24, 2012 and is headquartered in San Diego, CA.

Sources

Victim sitevikingtherapeutics.com

Source

Indexed 3 years 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 ALPHV/BlackCat

ALPHV, also known as BlackCat or Noberus, is a sophisticated ransomware-as-a-service operation that emerged in November 2021 and quickly became one of the most prolific ransomware groups globally, driven by financial motivations and responsible for compromising over 930 victims worldwide. The group is believed to be operated by Russian-speaking cybercriminals and represents an evolution of the BlackMatter ransomware operation, operating under a RaaS model that recruits experienced affiliates from other disbanded ransomware groups. ALPHV employs a multi-faceted attack methodology utilizing various initial access vectors including compromised Remote Desktop Protocol credentials, phishing campaigns, and exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities, followed by deployment of their Rust-based ransomware payload that supports both Windows and Linux environments, while consistently employing double extortion tactics that involve data theft prior to encryption and threats to publish stolen information on their leak site. Notable campaigns include high-profile attacks against critical infrastructure and major corporations across healthcare, finance, and energy sectors, with the group demanding ransoms ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, prompting the FBI and CISA to issue multiple advisories warning of their targeting of critical infrastructure organizations. As of early 2024, ALPHV remains active despite ongoing law enforcement efforts, continuing to evolve their tactics and maintain their position as one of the most significant ransomware threats globally. The group has been linked to 1,662 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 9, 2021; most recent post March 3, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: ALPHV, BlackCat, Noberus.

Timeline of this disclosure

December 19, 2023Viking Therapeutics listed by ALPHV/BlackCaton the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by ALPHV/BlackCat

ALPHV/BlackCat has been linked to 1,662 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full ALPHV/BlackCat dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Healthcare sector, which has 2,600 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Viking Therapeutics is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by ALPHV/BlackCat means Viking Therapeutics 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 ALPHV/BlackCat'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.