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CloudSEK’s investigation describes Azazel as an affiliate who used The Gentlemen ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) tooling, negotiation channels and ransom-note template, while operating a separate leak site called LEAKNED. CloudSEK says victims from his campaign appeared on LEAKNED, not The Gentlemen’s own leak site, and that he kept extortion proceeds outside the group’s normal arrangement. The case shows how one affiliate could use a ransomware program’s infrastructure while running a parallel operation; it is not a complete account of The Gentlemen or its affiliates.
Who was Azazel, and what made his operation different?
CloudSEK attributes the alias Azazel to the operator it investigated and describes him as affiliated with The Gentlemen. In a RaaS arrangement, a program’s operators provide ransomware tooling or other support while affiliates conduct attacks. In this case, CloudSEK says Azazel reused The Gentlemen’s tools and victim-facing negotiation channels, but ran LEAKNED as an independent place to publish victim data and collect extortion proceeds.
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That distinction matters: LEAKNED was not The Gentlemen’s own leak site. CloudSEK characterized the arrangement as unusual in the affiliate ecosystem because Azazel reportedly used the program while keeping proceeds from his operation outside its normal arrangement. The investigation does not establish the terms of a personal contract with Azazel or how much he received.
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CloudSEK’s statement, quoted in ITPro’s October 6, 2026 report, described the operation as a “betrayal of the RaaS operator running alongside the betrayal of victims.” That is CloudSEK’s characterization of this case, not evidence that every affiliate behaves this way.
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How did the operation handle infrastructure and stolen data?
CloudSEK describes three dedicated infrastructure nodes with different roles: a victim-facing command-and-control and upload server, an operations staging server, and a publication and archive server. It also reports more than 50 TB of raw physical storage across the dedicated servers, including a 22 TB long-term vault, and says MEGA was used as a final transfer destination.
Those figures describe reported storage capacity, not the volume of data stolen from victims. CloudSEK’s separate estimate of more than 6 TB exfiltrated applies to one AI-platform engagement, not to the operation as a whole.
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What access path did CloudSEK see across the identified victims?
CloudSEK identified more than two dozen organizations across six countries. That is the roster identified in its investigation, not a confirmed total of every affected organization or an independently verified count of the campaign’s full reach.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesOutside the separate AI-platform incident, CloudSEK says the recurring access path centered on secrets exposed through GitLab CI/CD variable stores and repository history. The affiliate extracted credentials and tokens—including database credentials, API keys and SSH keys—and used them to reach services and infrastructure. CloudSEK notes that a single token could provide access spanning more than one organization.
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How was the AI-platform compromise different?
CloudSEK treats the AI-platform incident as a separate, more sustained compromise, not as the standard sequence it observed across the other identified victims. It reports more than 6 TB exfiltrated in that engagement and describes this sequence:
- An unvalidated URL-fetching endpoint provided a route to internal services.
- Credentials were decrypted, and a token was recovered from Git history.
- Monitoring credentials were cracked offline.
- The operator swept Kubernetes and other infrastructure.
This is CloudSEK’s account of that specific engagement. It should not be read as a claim that every organization in the identified roster was breached through the same endpoint or sequence.
What did CloudSEK establish about MCP?
CloudSEK documented one confirmed operational use of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) in this investigation. It says a script called a locally bound MCP server to perform verification checks across systems in a victim environment. The investigation also found related scripts and scanning for exposed assistant ports.
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This evidence supports a narrow conclusion: MCP was used operationally in one documented instance. It does not show that MCP caused the initial compromise, that every scanned assistant port was exploited, or that this was the first such use by any threat actor.
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How does this case fit the wider picture of The Gentlemen?
Microsoft Threat Intelligence tracks the operators behind The Gentlemen as Storm-2697. In its May 28, 2026 technical analysis, Microsoft describes the operators as managing the RaaS platform while affiliates carry out attacks, and discusses a Go encryptor, self-propagation and double extortion. Microsoft says The Gentlemen emerged around mid-2025 and opened to affiliates in September 2025. Storm-2697 is Microsoft’s tracking name; attribution labels can differ among researchers.
A Bangladesh Computer Council e-GOV CIRT advisory published August 9, 2026 describes a 90 percent affiliate share for the program. That is the advisory’s description of the program, not independent confirmation of Azazel’s personal share or payment terms.
What can security teams take from the observed attack paths?
CloudSEK’s recommendations address the techniques it describes. They can reduce exposure and improve detection, but no single control guarantees prevention.
Protect CI/CD secrets and repository history
- Keep CI/CD credentials in a dedicated secrets manager rather than storing raw credentials in pipeline variables.
- Audit repository history for credentials that were deleted from the current version but remain in earlier commits.
- Rotate exposed tokens and alert on unusual reads of pipeline secrets.
- Apply least privilege to tokens and service accounts so one credential cannot reach more systems than its task requires.
Constrain automation and tool access
- Bind MCP servers only to strict loopback interfaces; avoid exposing assistant or tool ports to networks that do not need them.
- Treat execution tools as privileged capabilities and audit their use, including verification or system-discovery activity.
- Limit object-storage and service-account permissions, and monitor for unexpected bulk mirroring.
Keep recovery independent of production
- Separate backup infrastructure and credentials from production systems.
- Test restoration rather than assuming that stored backups are usable.
Microsoft’s May 2026 analysis also provides Defender detections and threat-hunting resources. Unit 42’s 2026 guidance discusses controls including patching exploited vulnerabilities, phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, credential rotation, EDR tamper protection, SMB signing, network segmentation and restricting ESXi management access. Vulnerability-specific advice and indicators can change, so organizations should consult the dated guidance and current advisories for their environments.
What the investigation does—and does not—show
CloudSEK’s October 6, 2026 report, “Caught in 4K: The Gentlemen Files,” is the primary account of this specific affiliate operation. ITPro’s report of the same date quotes CloudSEK but is secondary reporting, not separate forensic corroboration. The findings describe an investigated case: they do not establish the full victim population, prove every reported claim independently, or characterize all activity by The Gentlemen’s operators and affiliates.
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