Was Ambitek hit by ransomware?

Ambitek was listed by the Spacebears ransomware operation (United Kingdom), 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 Spacebears ransomware group?

Spacebears 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 Ambitek breach?

Spacebears published data attributed to Ambitek. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Ambitek

Claimed by Spacebears · listed 11 months ago

10m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 21, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Spacebears
Status: Data leaked
Country: United Kingdom
Listed on leak site: Aug 21, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Ambitek is a UK-based specialist recruitment agency focused exclusively on the manufacturing and engineering sector, providing permanent and contract staffing solutions to SMEs and major blue-chip organisations across the UK. The company operates from at least two offices in Manchester and St Helens, England. It covers disciplines including machining, welding & fabrication, design, quality inspection, controls & instrumentation, and skilled trades.

Industry: Manufacturing & Engineering Recruitment
Address: Manchester (0161 850 0834) and St Helens (01744 881 402), United Kingdom
Employees: 11-50

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been confirmed published by the group. As a recruitment agency, Ambitek holds significant volumes of candidate PII (CVs, personal details, employment history) and client business data. Publication of this data constitutes confirmed exfiltration of sensitive personal information at scale, affecting job seekers and client organisations.

The Spacebears ransomware group claims to have compromised Ambitek and has published data (disclosed status: data_published). The post indicates exfiltration of company and candidate/client data, though the specific volumes and encryption status are not stated in the available excerpt.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Employee personal information
Candidate CV and personal data
Client contact details
Internal business communications
Payroll and contractor records
Compliance documentation

What the group claims

Ambitek specialises in providing permanent and contract recruitment solutions to the UK Manufacturing Engineering Industry. We are "down to earth" recruitment professionals who approach every task with passion, honesty and 110% effort.We have strong knowledge of the UK Manufacturing Engineering market, allowing us to source the best people for the best jobs in the best companies.We have a successful track record of placing candidates who have skills and experience working within a range of disciplines such as Assembly & Maintenance, Design & Drawing Office, Foundry & Metallurgy, Machining & Tooling, Quality & Inspection, Welding & Fabrication, Site Based Engineering, Skilled Trades, Professional & White Collar Engineering, Production & Logistics and Controls & Instrumentation.Above all, our team is committed to delivering our Core Values. We truly understand the value of building positive long-term relationships with candidates and clients alike, as without you we wouldn't be great at what we do.Our vision is simple, we want to be the Recruiter of Choice for the UK Manufacturing Engineering Industry.- Database- Financial documents- Personal information of employees and clients https://www.ambitek.co.uk/

The leak post

captured from the group's site

@import"https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Inter:wght@300;400;500;600;700;800;900&display=swap";.header{position:absolute;top:0;left:0;color:#fff;width:100%;z-index:3}.header-inner{display:flex;align-items:center;justify-content:space-between;padding:50px 0}.header-inner ul{display:flex;align-items:center;justify-content:center;gap:65px}@media (max-width: 992px){.header-inner ul{gap:30px}}@media (max-width: 576px){.header-inner ul{gap:10px;font-size:12px}}.logo{font-family:Inter;font-size:36px;font-weight:900;line-height:1.3;letter-spacing:0em;text-align:left}@media (max-width: 1200px){.logo{font-size:30px}}@media (max-width: 992px){.logo{font-size:28px}}@media (max-width: 768px){.logo{font-size:24px}}.footer{background:#000;padding:70px 0;font-size:16px}@media (max-width: 992px){.footer{font-size:14px}}@media (max-width: 768px){.footer{font-style:12px}}.footer-inner{display:flex;align-items:center;justify-content:space-between;gap:20px;position:relative}@media (max-width: 992px){.footer-inner{flex-direction:column}}.footer-logo{font-family:Inter;font-size:36px;font-weight:900;line-height:1.3;letter-spacing:0em;text-align:left;color:#fff}@media (max-width: 1200px){.footer-log…

Sources

Victim sitewww.ambitek.co.uk
Leak posthttp://5butbkrljkaorg5maepuca25oma7eiwo6a2rlhvkblb4v6mf3ki2ovid.onion/companies/83/ambitek

Source

Indexed 11 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.

Is this your supplier? Your competitor? You?

Pro plans monitor your domain, corporate emails, and crypto wallets across every new ransomware leak-site post, breach dump and Telegram callout — alerts within 5 minutes.

Disclosure context

About Spacebears

Spacebears is a recently emerged ransomware group first observed in April 2024, operating with apparent financial motivations and demonstrating a broad targeting approach across multiple sectors and geographic regions. The group's origin and potential affiliations remain unclear due to limited public documentation from established threat intelligence sources, though their targeting pattern suggests a professional operation focused on maximizing financial returns rather than geopolitical objectives. With 117 known victims since their emergence, Spacebears has shown particular focus on organizations in the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Canada, with their attacks primarily affecting technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and business services sectors, indicating they likely employ opportunistic targeting rather than sector-specific specialization. Their attack methodology, initial access vectors, and specific technical capabilities have not been extensively documented in public reporting from major cybersecurity firms or law enforcement agencies, limiting detailed analysis of their operational procedures and tools. Due to the group's recent emergence and limited public intelligence reporting, notable high-profile campaigns and specific victim details remain largely undocumented in established threat intelligence channels. The group's current operational status appears active given their recent emergence timeline, though comprehensive analysis is constrained by the lack of detailed public reporting from authoritative cybersecurity sources. The group has been linked to 185 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on April 29, 2024; most recent post July 13, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: space bears.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 21, 2025Ambitek listed by Spacebearson the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

Geographically, Ambitek is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 1,217 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Spacebears means Ambitek 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, NCSC (United Kingdom), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Spacebears'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.