Description of Ransomware Attack

Recent choppy waters for Margaritaville at Sea passengers didn’t involve their cruise experience on the water. Instead, their personal information was compromised in a data breach that occurred during the week of September 22, 2025. The attack on the cruise ship company was allegedly carried out by Lynx, a ransomware group notorious for its double extortion tactics:

  • First, infiltrate the target’s network and exfiltrate all discovered data
  • Next, encrypt the stolen data to disrupt operations
  • Demand ransom for the decryption key and threaten the release of the stolen data if payment isn’t made

The data possibly exposed in the attack includes names, dates of birth (DoB), addresses, passport details, financial information, and Social Security numbers (SSNs).

Resulting Class Action Suits of Breach

Thus far, at least two lawsuits have been filed in the wake of the incident. The plaintiffs, as in many cybersecurity cases, allege that the cruise line was negligent because it failed to implement “reasonable” security measures to protect its systems against known types of attacks. They also assert breach of implied contract and unjust enrichment, arguing that passengers reasonably expected the company to safeguard their personal data. The suit further alleges delayed customer notification and claims passengers face potential identity theft, fraud, tax refund delays, and continued privacy concerns.

Call to Action

One troubling circumstance of this data breach is that the Lynx ransomware group used the same attack playbook they always use, which is to exploit remote management tools or leverage initial access brokers. This approach is essentially textbook modern ransomware and is common across many Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operations, including Lynx. In other words, a cybersecurity-minded organization should have known about these well-known risks and implemented reasonable security measures to protect against such attacks. This means locking down all remote access tools.

  • Start by identifying all the paths into the network, including VPNs, RDP gateways, MSP agents, cloud consoles, and third-party support tools.
  • Harden these tools if possible by restricting source IP addresses and blocking RDP or SMB access from the internet entirely.
  • Phishing-resistant MFA (multifactor authentication), such as FIDO2 or WebAuth, should be required for all VPN and cloud console access.
  • Enforce MFA for administrators regardless of access method.
  • Log or record all remote sessions and alert security teams to unusual access times, tools, or high-risk actions.

 

The above-mentioned steps should be part of a comprehensive enforcement of least privilege in which users and service accounts only have the necessary rights to do their assigned tasks. This means creating separate admin accounts for any privileged tasks. In summary, securing remote is a textbook line of defense against modern ransomware tactics.

 

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