Was urban1.com hit by ransomware?

urban1.com was listed by the Cactus ransomware operation (United States), and stolen data was published on the group's leak site. Darkfield tracks this disclosure with the original leak post, screenshot and group context.

Who is the Cactus ransomware group?

Cactus is a ransomware operator tracked by Darkfield. See the full operator dossier for its known victims, sectors targeted, IOCs and leak-site infrastructure.

What data was leaked in the urban1.com breach?

Cactus published data attributed to urban1.com. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Urban One, Inc.

listed as urban1.com · Claimed by Cactus · listed 1 year ago

$460.3M

Ransom

demanded

16m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedMar 12, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Cactus
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Technology
Listed on leak site: Mar 12, 2025
Ransom demanded: $460.3M
Estimated revenue: $460.3M

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Urban One, Inc. is a publicly traded media company founded in 1980 by Cathy Hughes, serving primarily African American audiences. It is the largest African American-owned and operated broadcast company in the United States, operating multiple brands including TV One, CLEO TV, Radio One, and digital properties.

Industry: Media & Broadcasting
Address: 1010 Wayne Ave Fl 14, Silver Spring, Maryland, 20910, United States
Founded: 1980

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Confirmed exfiltration of PII at scale (employees and executives), financial records (Q1 consolidated income statement, payroll), executive communications (board meeting minutes), and sensitive business documents from a publicly traded company with $460.3M revenue. Data published with multiple proof files.

Cactus claims to have exfiltrated personal identifiable information, database backups, corporate internal documents, contracts, financial data, payroll records, legal documents, employee and executive personal data, and corporate correspondence from Urban One.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Personal identifiable information
Database backups
Corporate internal documents
Contracts and agreements
Financial data
Payroll records
Legal documents
Employee and executive personal data
Corporate correspondence

The group's post references roughly 5 proof files.

What the group claims

Broadcasting.“Urban One, Inc. is a publicly traded media company that primarily serves African American audiences. Founded in 1980 by Cathy Hughes, Urban One is the largest African American-owned and operated broadcast company in the United States.”Website: https://urban1.com/Revenue : $460.3MAddress: 1010 Wayne Ave Fl 14, Silver Spring, Maryland, 20910, United StatesPhone Number: (301) 429-3200Download link #1: <a href="https://6wuivqgrv2g7brcwhjw5co3vligiqowpumzkcyebku7i2busrvlxnzid.onion/URBAN1/PROOF/">https://6wuivqgrv2g7brcwhjw5co3vligiqowpumzkcyebku7i2busrvlxnzid.onion/URBAN1/PROOF/</a>Mirror: <a href="https://cactus5dqnqkppa5ayckiyk6dttpqwczdqphv5mxh4dkk5ct544q5aad.onion/URBAN1/PROOF/">https://cactus5dqnqkppa5ayckiyk6dttpqwczdqphv5mxh4dkk5ct544q5aad.onion/URBAN1/PROOF/</a>DATA DESCRIPTIONS: Personal identifiable information, database backups, corporate internal documents, contracts, agreements, financial data\payroll, legal documents, employees and executives personal data, corporate confidential and personal correspondence, etc.<img src="/uploads/C_Hughes_93f9a363fa.png" alt="C. Hughes.png"><img src="/uploads/May_23_2023_Executive_Committee_Meeting_Minutes_Draft_17b95a22d9.png" alt="May 23 2023 Executive Committee Meeting Minutes (Draft).png"><img src="/uploads/Radio_One_Lease_5303_G2_Glenmont_final_80581afe89.png" alt="Radio One Lease 5303 G2 Glenmont final.png"><img src="/uploads/Copy_of_working_OAR_2023_Q1_Consolidated_Income_Statement_0f9ae862c4.png" alt="Copy of working_OAR 2023.Q1 Consolidated Income Statement.png"><img src="/uploads/Ashanti_at_The_Met_Philadelphia_2024_05_19_Contract_104353_Rider_FINAL_69_1_dc0fce44dd.png" alt="Ashanti at The Met Philadelphia 2024-05-19 Contract 104353 Rider FINAL 69 (1).png">

Sources

Victim siteurban1.com
Leak posthttps://cactusbloguuodvqjmnzlwetjlpj6aggc6iocwhuupb47laukux7ckid.onion/posts/Urban1

Source

Indexed 1 year 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.

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Disclosure context

About Cactus

**Overview:** Cactus is a ransomware group that emerged in July 2023, primarily motivated by financial gain through double extortion tactics targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group has demonstrated rapid expansion, compromising 552 known victims within its first year of operation. **Origin & Affiliation:** Limited public information exists regarding Cactus's country of origin or specific affiliations with other ransomware groups, though their targeting patterns and operational methods suggest they operate as an independent entity rather than a Ransomware-as-a-Service model. **Attack Methodology:** Cactus ransomware operators employ double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before encrypting victim systems and threatening to leak the information if ransom demands are not met. The group appears to focus on gaining initial access through common vectors such as compromised credentials and vulnerable internet-facing applications, followed by lateral movement and data exfiltration prior to deployment of their encryption payload. **Notable Campaigns:** While specific high-profile incidents have not been extensively documented by major security agencies, the group's victim count of 552 organizations within approximately one year indicates sustained and aggressive targeting campaigns across North America and Europe. Their focus on manufacturing and business services sectors suggests deliberate targeting of organizations likely to pay ransoms due to operational dependencies. **Current Status:** Cactus remains an active ransomware threat as of late 2024, continuing to target organizations primarily in the United States, Canada, and European countries with no reported law enforcement disruptions or confirmed dissolution of their operations. The group has been linked to 552 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 20, 2023; most recent post March 21, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

March 12, 2025urban1.com listed by Cactuson the group's public leak site

Ransom demanded: $460.3M

Other recent disclosures by Cactus

Cactus has been linked to 552 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Cactus dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Technology sector, which has 3,549 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, urban1.com is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Cactus means urban1.com 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 Cactus'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.