Security News

Ukraine's Largest Grocery Chain ATB Hit by Extortion Attack as Hackers Claim Millions of Customer Records

The Record · 6 Oct 2026

Key Takeaway Prepare an incident response plan now that covers how you will verify and communicate about extortion claims, and make sure customer data and staff identity documents are stored securely and kept only as long as needed.

Ukraine's largest grocery chain, ATB, confirmed on Monday that it was hit by a cyberattack after hackers posted an extortion demand on its website. The group DataSuckers claimed responsibility and demanded $400,000, threatening to publish data it said it had stolen. A countdown timer appeared on the site but was later removed, and the website was unavailable at the time of reporting. ATB temporarily took some online services offline for what it called technical maintenance.

ATB denied that customer data had been compromised, saying the website remains under its control and all information is securely protected. The hackers disagreed. They posted samples of the allegedly stolen data on Telegram and said they would sell the full database rather than leak it. They claim it covers 7.9 million customers, including names, contact details, password hashes, employee passport information and more than 11 million order records. The authenticity and scale of the data could not be independently verified.

DataSuckers describes itself as financially motivated rather than politically aligned. The group also claimed an attack on Russian fast-food chain Dodo Pizza in September, and Dodo later confirmed attackers may have accessed customer names, addresses, contact details, dates of birth and order details. ATB operates more than 1,300 stores and employs more than 60,000 people.

data breach extortion retail DataSuckers ransom demand

Summarised by CISO AI from The Record, written with Claude Sonnet 5.5. We link back to every original so you can read it yourself.