Was K & E Distributing hit by ransomware?

K & E Distributing was listed by the pear 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 pear ransomware group?

pear 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 K & E Distributing breach?

pear published data attributed to K & E Distributing. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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K & E Distributing

Claimed by Pear · listed 3 days ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJun 10, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Pear
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Transportation/Logistics
Listed on leak site: Jun 10, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

K & E Distributing is a geothermal and HVAC equipment distributor operating in the Midwest for over 40 years. Based in Iowa and Missouri, they supply ClimateMaster, GeoStar, EcoForest, and LG HVAC products to residential and commercial customers across the region.

Industry: HVAC Distribution & Geothermal Energy Systems
Address: 1501 Walnut Street, Dallas Center, IA; 2376 State Road MM, New Bloomfield, MO 65063

Attack summary

Severity: high — Confirmed exfiltration of sensitive business and personal data including financial records, customer/vendor PII, payment details, and email correspondence. No proof files evident in truncated post, but disclosure status is 'data_published'.

The pear group claims to have exfiltrated financial records, HR data, customer and vendor information with payment details, project drawings, email correspondence, QuickBooks accounting data, and database exports from K & E Distributing.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Financial records
HR data
Customer personal data
Vendor personal data
Payment details
Projects & drawings
Email correspondence
QuickBooks accounting data
Database exports

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

N/A

The leak post

captured from the group's site

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 |  Financials, HR, Customers’ & Vendors’ Private Data, Payment Details, Projects & Drawings, Mailboxes & Email Correspondence, QuickBooks Data, Database & Exports, etc.  |  
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Sources

Victim sitekedistributing.com
Leak posthttp://pearsmob5sn44ismokiusuld34pnfwi6ctgin3qbvonpoob4lh3rmtqd.onion/Companies/kedistributing

Source

Indexed 3 days 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 pear

The Pear ransomware group is a relatively new threat actor that emerged in August 2025, operating with primarily financial motivations and targeting victims across multiple countries and sectors. Based on their recent emergence and limited public documentation, specific details about their country of origin and organizational structure remain unclear, though their targeting patterns suggest a financially-driven operation that may operate independently or as part of a smaller ransomware-as-a-service model. With 65 documented victims since their August 2025 debut, the group has demonstrated a preference for targeting organizations in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, and Switzerland, with particular focus on healthcare, business services, manufacturing, and technology sectors. Their attack methodology and specific technical details have not been extensively documented by major threat intelligence firms or law enforcement agencies, though their rapid victim acquisition suggests they have established effective initial access and encryption capabilities. Notable campaigns and high-profile attacks have not been publicly detailed by CISA, FBI, or major security research organizations, likely due to the group's recent emergence and relatively small scale compared to established ransomware operations. As of late 2025, Pear appears to remain active given their recent emergence and ongoing victim targeting across multiple geographic regions and industry verticals. The group has been linked to 92 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on August 5, 2025; most recent post June 10, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

June 10, 2026K & E Distributing listed by pearon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by pear

pear has been linked to 92 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full pear dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Transportation/Logistics sector, which has 847 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, K & E Distributing is reported in United States, a country with 2,714 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by pear means K & E Distributing 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.
Monitor for the data appearing on pear'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.