On January 20, 2026, the Everest Ransomware Group posted a massive 861 GB data leak claim on their dark web portal. They claim to possess a treasure trove of customer and corporate intelligence on McDonald’s India. The group also posted proof of breach evidence in the form of screenshots on:

• Internal audit and compliance trails alongside financial reports with month-by-month breakdowns.

• A "Contact Database" containing PII (Personally Identifiable Information) of alleged international investors and partners.

• Store-level granularity, including contact details of managers for dozens of Indian outlets.

While we are unable to verify the authenticity of the data, going by previous TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) deployed by the group, it is possible that there has been some form of data that has been exfiltrated.

In this post, we do a deep dive into the incident and more importantly, double-click on the significance of the Everest group’s TTPs and motivations.

Before we move ahead, in case you have not read our previous blog post on Critical implications of The EU Cybersecurity Act 2026 for OT infrastructure operators and enterprises we recommend you do so. You can access this detailed post here.

The claim: 861 GB of stolen intelligence

Everest is an evolved Russian threat actor with almost half-a-decade of experience in exfiltrating data and extortion. The group has been known to spend enormous amounts of money to buy credentials from IABs or Initial Access Brokers in addition to buying publicly available tools. To supplement this effort, the group is also running an active insider recruitment project focusing on key employees within target organizations. While the group started its career by focusing on American and Canadian entities, it expanded its reach to cover other geographies in early 2022.

Unlike other threat actors, the Everest group is more proactive when it comes to reaching out to potential insiders. The group is known to recruit insiders via LinkedIn and ‘X’. It is possible that the group has a team that identifies and monitors the social media activities of target insiders. Earlier, the group used to publish generic advertisements asking for insiders to come forward and sell credentials belonging to companies in certain industries and sectors.   

Understanding the TTP

Everest is known to go after victims that are dealing with huge amounts of sensitive data. This gives it an opportunity to leverage any fatigue within the system be it at a system level or at a security analyst level. Once the credentials are received, the group uses the compromised accounts along with an RDP protocol to move within the compromised networks. Additional credentials are then harvested using specialized tools and processes. The actor also uses network discovery tools to detect and locate new hosts while removing tools and recon files to erase signs of compromise.

All valuable data troves are copied and copies maintained locally. The group uses WinRAR to then archive and exfiltrate the data.   

How the McDonald’s India breach likely unfolded

Based on the Everest Group’s TTP as detailed above and the nature of the leaked files, we can reconstruct a likely attack path.

A compromised credential belonging to a senior manager, a third-party or someone who had plenty of access within the entity was the likely entry point. An IAB could have contributed as well. Presence of data from stores points to a compromised source that was dealing with granular data. The data belonging to investors may have been compromised during a secondary breach that the actor could have executed after laterally moving across compromised networks and accessed data using RDP. The lack of virtual segmentation likely allowed the actor to access high-level systems beyond the initial point of compromise (threat actors are known to move up to more important data rather than down when it comes to harvesting data). But it is also possible that ProcDump was used to scrape the LSASS process. This allowed the attacker to pivot from a low-level store workstation to a high-level financial or even an ERP server.

The lateral movement could have been supported by the use of Cobalt Strike beacons for command and control (C2) and moved laterally using compromised legitimate accounts via RDP. Importing tools for lateral movement or executing more breaches within the network is fraught with risks including detection and security could even end up blocking the compromised accounts. Thus, actors like Everest use tools already present within the target environment to expand the breach radius without detection.  

What else can we figure out?

The sheer volume of data (nearly a Terabyte) exfiltrated suggests the attackers had significant dwell time. This could range from weeks or maybe even a couple of months to map the network and extract data without triggering volume-based alerts. Everest maintained a low profile in the interim and possibly carried out its activities within activity windows that attracted less attention from security teams or owners of the compromised accounts (possibly lunchtime or during team meetings).

The stolen data was complied into a WinRAR archive was then been exfiltrated using tools that are used for legitimate IT support and often fly under the radar of standard EDRs due to operational exceptions granted.    

Possible security weaknesses

The success of this breach highlights three potential structural failures:

The value of this breach to Everest

This is more than a simple ransom play. Because Everest also acts as an Initial Access Broker, this breach creates a "Double Jeopardy" for the victim:

• Direct extortion: Paying to stop the data leak.

• Access resale: Even if the ransom is paid, Everest may have already sold the "how-to" guide for the breach to other state-sponsored or criminal actors.

• The data can still be sold by the Everest Ransomware Group 

Key lessons for global enterprises

This incident is a stark reminder that Access is the new currency for trading trust. Ransomware groups are evolving into "Management consultants for cybercrime," and internal information is their most valuable product. Data once lost can lead to a lot of complications, so it is better to put in place access and data movement barriers to make it tough for actors to move around and locate data of interest.

There are lessons for OT operators as well. Flat networks without adequate monitoring and proper risk assessments based on IEC 62443 can lead to a lot of security and compliance challenges later.  

This breach is a shot in the arm for the Everest Ransomware Group and a validation of its breach methods and models. A confident threat actor could easily become bolder and expand its target base as we have seen in the past. Everest moved beyond targeting the US after breaching a list of very significant victims.

Enterprises must move beyond simple perimeter defense. Implementing Zero Trust Access (ZTA) where every lateral move requires re-authentication (re-earning of trust) can no longer be considered optional.  

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