Abyss ransomware claims 1.5TB from Australian Nursing Home Foundation

The Australian Nursing Home Foundation, a Sydney based not for profit that has provided residential aged care, community care and seniors housing to elderly Chinese and South East Asian Australians for more than four decades, was named on the dark web leak site of the Abyss ransomware group at the end of October 2024.

The listing appeared on 29 October and claimed 1.5 terabytes of uncompressed data taken from the organisation, with a threat to publish the files on 5 November if the group's demands were not met. Abyss provided little detail beyond a short description of the foundation and the publication deadline.

Because the foundation runs nursing homes, seniors wellness centres, community housing and home support services, the material was widely assumed to include resident, staff and operational records, but none of that was confirmed by the organisation or by any regulator. Cyber Daily said it had approached the foundation for comment.

Abyss, also known as Abyss Locker, first surfaced in March 2023 and is understood to reuse code associated with the HelloKitty ransomware family. It operates a double extortion model, stealing files before encrypting systems and then publishing the data if payment is refused. As of early November 2024 the foundation had issued no public statement and the scale of the incident remained unverified.