Ransomware incidents in Japan in the first half of 2026: Investigation of The Gentlemen’s infrastructure and evidence of Qilin's AI use

This report analyzes ransomware incidents in Japan (Jan–Jul 2026), noting a ~4.7% year-over-year increase and identifying The Gentlemen as the most active group (sharp rise in leak-site listings) and Qilin as notable for AI-assisted tooling; it details attack flows, exploited CVEs (including CVE-2025-2479, CVE-2020-1472, MS17-010), use of tooling such as RustHound/BloodHound, Responder, Impacket, Chisel, Ligolo, AdaptixC2 and rclone for exfiltration, evidence suggesting Russian-language operators, observed data theft and double-extortion, and provides prevention and detection recommendations (inventory/patching, MFA, EDR, third-party access controls) plus Snort rules for detection.