Was Inquirer hit by ransomware?

Inquirer was listed by the Cuba 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 Cuba ransomware group?

Cuba 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 Inquirer breach?

Cuba published data attributed to Inquirer. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

The Philadelphia Inquirer

listed as Inquirer · Claimed by Cuba · listed 3 years ago

38m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedMay 23, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Cuba
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Media & Entertainment
Listed on leak site: May 23, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Philadelphia Inquirer, PBC is a locally owned news organization headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that has been publishing since 1829. It provides local and regional journalism covering news, sports, politics, business, and entertainment for the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The organization operates both a print newspaper and a digital subscription platform at inquirer.com.

Industry: News Media & Publishing
Address: 801 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, United States
Employees: 501-1000
Founded: 1829

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been confirmed as published by the Cuba group against a major regional news organization, indicating successful exfiltration of business data. While specific data categories are not detailed in the post, a data_published status from a known ransomware operator against a media company of this scale constitutes significant business data exposure.

The Cuba ransomware group claims an attack on The Philadelphia Inquirer and has published data, suggesting exfiltration of company data; the disclosed status indicates data has been published though no ransom amount or specific data volume was stated in the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Internal company documents
Employee records
Business financial data

What the group claims

About The Philadelphia Inquirer, PBCSince 1829, The Philadelphia Inquirer has been “asking on behalf of the people” of Philadelphia and the region by providing essential journalism. Locally owned and headquartered in...

Sources

Victim siteinquirer.com
Leak posthttp://cuba4ikm4jakjgmkezytyawtdgr2xymvy6nvzgw5cglswg3si76icnqd.onion/company/Inquirer

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 Cuba

The Cuba ransomware group is a financially-motivated cybercriminal organization that emerged in February 2021 and has since conducted attacks against at least 105 known victims globally. The group operates as an independent ransomware operation with suspected ties to Russian-speaking cybercriminals, though their exact country of origin remains unconfirmed by law enforcement agencies. Cuba ransomware operators primarily gain initial access through compromised Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials, exploitation of Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities, and phishing campaigns, subsequently deploying their custom Cuba ransomware payload which encrypts victim files while exfiltrating sensitive data before encryption as part of their double extortion strategy. The group has particularly targeted organizations in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, and Belgium, with a notable focus on critical infrastructure sectors including healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and energy companies. According to FBI reporting, the Cuba ransomware group has demanded ransom payments ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars from their victims. As of recent threat intelligence assessments, the Cuba ransomware group remains active and continues to pose a significant threat to organizations across multiple sectors and geographic regions. The group has been linked to 105 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on February 3, 2021; most recent post February 1, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: COLDDRAW, Fidel.

Timeline of this disclosure

May 23, 2023Inquirer listed by Cubaon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Cuba

Cuba has been linked to 105 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Cuba dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Media & Entertainment sector, which has 97 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Inquirer is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Cuba means Inquirer 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 Cuba'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.