Cybersecurity researcher Shiva Parasram announced today on LinkedIn that AlphaV has resurfaced on the darkweb and announced a 48 hour countdown before a threatened release of data exfiltrated from PriceSmart Limited.

AlphaV’s darkweb onionsite was siezed by a coalition of law enforcement agencies and shut down today. A note posted by the agencies at the former AlphaV onionsite address read: “This action has been taken in coordination with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Department of Justice with substantial assistance from Europol and Zentrale Kriminalinspektion Göttingen.”

AlphaV’s reposting of the exfiltrated data.

Parasram noted that the seizure happened early this morning, “between 7am and 9am.” By noon, he reports, AlphaV, also known as BlackCat, had posted a note by noon today declaring that it had “unseized” the data and announced a fresh countdown for release.

The original data exfiltration was announced by AlphaV in November this year.

Updated December 23, 2023: AlphaV has released 500GB of PriceSmart company data on the dark web, stating in its release that: “All important information in the amount of 500gb was stolen. Because of their misunderstanding and inability to negotiate, we share information with you. You should not work with them, their structure is also not protected, and the vulnerability has not been fixed. Companies that will be subject to attacks related to them should sue.”

Preliminary examination of the exfiltrated by information security professionals reveals a dataset that expands to more than 900GB and includes sensitive company data related to PriceSmart’s Latin American operations. There has been no confirmation yet whether the dataset includes sensitive, personally identifiable information (PII) related to the Caribbean countries in which PriceSmart operates.