Grief is a ransomware group that emerged in May 2021, operating primarily as a financially motivated cybercriminal organization focused on extorting victims through file encryption and data theft. The group's country of origin and specific affiliations remain unclear based on publicly available intelligence, though they appear to operate independently rather than as part of a larger ransomware-as-a-service ecosystem. Grief employs double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before deploying their ransomware payload and threatening to publicly release the information if ransom demands are not met, with their encryption methods following standard ransomware deployment patterns seen across similar threat actors. The group has maintained a relatively low profile compared to major ransomware operations, with documented attacks primarily targeting education facilities within the United States, though their limited victim count of three known cases suggests either highly selective targeting or successful operational security that has kept many of their activities from public disclosure. Based on available reporting from established cybersecurity firms and law enforcement agencies, Grief remains active as of recent intelligence assessments, continuing to pose a threat to organizations particularly within the education sector. The group has been linked to 3 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on May 26, 2021; most recent post June 30, 2021. The operation is currently inactive.
Sector and geography
This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education Facilities sector, which has 27 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Lancaster Independent School District is reported in United States, a country with 7,392 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.
