Panzer Ransomware Targets Italian Manufacturers and Telecom Firms With ESXi-Ready RaaS
Brief
Panzer ransomware has entered Italy amid a sharp rise in attacks. The ransomware-as-a-service, or RaaS, operation surfaced on August 5 and listed a kitchen manufacturer in Treviso and a telecommunications engineering firm in Catanzaro among its alleged victims.
The group advertises tools for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and VMware ESXi systems. An attack on a virtualization host can disrupt many business applications at once, turning one compromised server into a wider outage.
Panzer posted victims across 11 countries and the campaign arrived as claimed ransomware incidents in Italy reached 212 by September 6, above the 169 recorded during all of 2025.
Researcher Andrea Fortuna said in a report shared with Cyber Security News (CSN) that the Panzer’s victim posts should still be treated carefully.