Skip to main content
Darkfield

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Hayward Industries

listed as Hayward · Claimed by Blackbyte · listed 4 years ago

42m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedJan 5, 2023
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Blackbyte
Status
Data leaked
Country
United States
Sector
Manufacturing
Listed on leak site
Jan 5, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Hayward is a U.S.-based manufacturer of residential and commercial swimming pool equipment, including pumps, filters, heaters, automated control systems, lighting, and pool cleaners. Operating for over 80 years, the company markets itself as a single-source solution for pool ownership under its 'Totally Hayward' system brand. Hayward serves global markets and is publicly traded, positioning itself as a global leader in pool equipment and automation systems.

Industry
Pool Equipment & Automation Manufacturing
Employees
1001-5000
Founded
1940

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published by the ransomware group, confirming exfiltration of significant business data from a publicly traded manufacturing company; while no specific regulated data categories are confirmed, the published status and scale of the target elevate severity to high.

BlackByte claims to have attacked Hayward and has published data (disclosed status: data_published), suggesting exfiltration of company data; no specific ransom amount or data volume was stated in the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Corporate business data
  • Potentially employee records
  • Potentially customer records
  • Potentially proprietary product/engineering data
  • Potentially financial records

What the group claims

Come on in... The water is Hayward.At Hayward®, we're more than just equipment. Our objective is to make your pool experience worry and hassle-free. That's why our equipment is engineered to last and work smart at keeping your pool sparkling clean and trouble free.For over 80-years, we've been helping pool owners enjoy the pleasures of pool ownership by manufacturing cutting edge, technologically advanced pool equipment worldwide. We strive to ensure that your Totally Hayward™ System operates at maximum efficiency all season long. Our goal is that at the end of the day, your only concern is to turn your equipment on and off. Whether you are trying to create the perfect backyard environment, reduce operating and maintenance costs through the ease of wireless controls, Hayward is your single source solution. Our products include a complete line of technologically advanced pumps, filters, heaters, heat pumps, automatic pool cleaners, lighting, controls and salt chlorine generators—high-quality components engineered to work together to keep your pool at its best.Hayward aims to take the worry out of pool ownership by developing products that are efficient, require little maintenance and add value to your investment.

Sources

Source

Indexed 4 years ago

This page surfaces a public ransomware disclosure indexed by Darkfield. Original posts come from the operator's own leak site; we cross-check against ransomware.live, RansomLook and RansomWatch where applicable. Share this URL freely.

Is this your supplier? Your competitor? You?

Pro plans monitor your domain, corporate emails, and crypto wallets across every new ransomware leak-site post, breach dump and Telegram callout — alerts within 5 minutes.

Disclosure context

About Blackbyte

BlackByte is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation that emerged in October 2021, primarily motivated by financial gain through double extortion tactics targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group is suspected to operate from Russia or former Soviet states based on their use of Russian-language forums and avoidance of targeting organizations in Commonwealth of Independent States countries, though they maintain no confirmed links to other established ransomware families. BlackByte operators typically gain initial access through vulnerable Microsoft Exchange servers, phishing campaigns, and exploitation of remote desktop protocol (RDP) services, employing tools such as Cobalt Strike for lateral movement and data exfiltration before deploying their custom ransomware payload that uses AES-256 encryption with RSA-2048 key protection. The group has demonstrated particular focus on critical infrastructure sectors, with the FBI and CISA issuing joint advisories in February 2022 highlighting attacks against organizations in government, healthcare, manufacturing, and education sectors, including notable incidents affecting San Francisco's transportation authority and multiple healthcare systems across the United States. BlackByte remains active as of 2024, continuing to evolve their tactics and maintain their leak site for publishing stolen data from victims who refuse to pay ransoms. The group has been linked to 147 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 4, 2021; most recent post July 30, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • January 5, 2023Hayward listed by Blackbyteon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Blackbyte

Blackbyte has been linked to 147 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Blackbyte dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Manufacturing sector, which has 3,681 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Hayward is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Blackbyte means Hayward appeared on a ransomware extortion site and data attributed to it has been published. If this is your organisation, or a supplier you depend on, the priority is to confirm the intrusion and contain it before the window to act closes.

  • Engage your incident-response team and preserve forensic evidence before remediating — do not wipe affected systems first.
  • Force a password reset and revoke active sessions for exposed accounts; rotate any credentials, API keys or certificates that may have been in the stolen data.
  • Assess regulatory notification duties (GDPR, NIS2, sector regulators) — many carry a 72-hour reporting clock from awareness.
  • Report the incident to your national CERT, CISA (United States), as required for your jurisdiction.
  • Monitor for the data appearing on Blackbyte's leak site and across paste and breach channels, and brief downstream partners who may be exposed through you.

How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.