Disclosure context

About Vicesociety

Vicesociety is a ransomware group that emerged in May 2021, primarily motivated by financial gain through targeting critical infrastructure and public service organizations. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undetermined by public threat intelligence reporting, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent ransomware operation rather than a established RaaS model. Vicesociety primarily gains initial access through exploitation of public-facing applications and credential-based attacks, with documented cases showing they particularly focus on compromising remote access services and vulnerable web applications before deploying their ransomware payload across victim networks. The group has demonstrated a clear preference for targeting educational institutions, government agencies, and healthcare organizations, with their 188 documented victims concentrated heavily in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Spain, indicating a focus on English-speaking and Western European entities. While specific high-profile campaigns have not been extensively detailed in major public threat intelligence reports from CISA or FBI advisories, the group's consistent targeting of critical sectors like education and healthcare has drawn attention from security researchers monitoring threats to essential services. Vicesociety remains active as of recent threat intelligence assessments, continuing their operations against similar target sectors with no documented law enforcement disruption or significant operational changes. The group has been linked to 188 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on May 31, 2021; most recent post December 14, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

June 20, 2023SSV Architects listed by Vicesocietyon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Construction sector, which has 415 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, SSV Architects is reported in Germany, a country with 695 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

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.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

SSV Architekten BDA (Frank Stichs Jan Vochsen Klaus Ziegler Johannes Pfau PartGmbB)

listed as SSV Architects · Claimed by Vicesociety · listed 3 years ago

35m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Jun 20, 2023
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Vicesociety
Status: Data leaked
Country: Germany
Sector: Construction
Listed on leak site: Jun 20, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

SSV Architekten BDA is a Heidelberg-based architectural partnership offering services in architecture, interior design, corporate design, project development, and construction management. The firm specialises in healthcare facilities, research and educational buildings, office/administrative buildings, and high-quality residential construction, with a particular focus on conversions of listed (heritage) buildings. The practice operates under a holistic design philosophy integrating sustainability, BIM, fire protection, and energy consulting.

Industry: Architecture & Interior Design
Address: Marlene-Dietrich-Platz 1, 69126 Heidelberg, Germany

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been confirmed as published by the group, indicating actual exfiltration and release of internal business data. The firm handles sensitive client projects including healthcare and research facilities, raising the likelihood that confidential project documentation and personal data are among the leaked files.

Vice Society claims to have published data exfiltrated from SSV Architekten; the disclosure status is listed as 'data_published', indicating files have been released, though no ransom amount or specific data volume was stated in the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Architectural project files
Internal business documents
Client correspondence
Employee records (potential)
Financial records (potential)

What the group claims

Our office realizes a wide range of different construction tasks. We design buildings that are natural, individual and clearly designed. These include both new buildings and the majority of conversions of mostly listed buildings.

Sources

Victim sitessv-architekten.de/

Source

Indexed 3 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.