Was Etex Communications hit by ransomware?

Etex Communications was listed by the Blackbyte 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 Blackbyte ransomware group?

Blackbyte 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 Etex Communications breach?

Blackbyte published data attributed to Etex Communications. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Etex Telephone Cooperative

listed as Etex Communications · Claimed by Blackbyte · listed 3 years ago

40m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedMar 16, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Blackbyte
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Telecommunications
Listed on leak site: Mar 16, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Etex Telephone Cooperative is a rural telecommunications cooperative serving approximately 710 square miles of East Texas, headquartered in Gilmer, TX. It provides local and long-distance phone, digital TV, high-speed internet (DSL and fiber), and smart home services to residential and business customers at rates comparable to urban areas. The cooperative has evolved from legacy open-wire infrastructure to a modern fiber-optic network.

Industry: Rural Telecommunications & Internet Services (Cooperative)
Address: Gilmer, TX, United States

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published by the ransomware group against a cooperative telecommunications provider serving rural communities. Telecom providers hold subscriber PII, billing data, and network infrastructure information; data_published status confirms exfiltration beyond a mere listing, and disruption or exposure of a community-critical ISP elevates severity.

Blackbyte claims to have compromised Etex Communications and has published data (disclosed status: data_published), indicating 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

Customer account records
Subscriber personal information
Business services data
Internal communications
Network/operational data

What the group claims

The Company’s rich heritage and continued desire to bring the very best communications services and technology to subscribers is evidenced by the evolutions of the network from open wire strung along fence posts and outhouses to the digital fiber optic network in place today.Etex Telephone Cooperative boasts a service territory of 710 square miles of rural East Texas. Customers within this service area are given the opportunity to purchase local, long distance, digital TV and internet (dial-up and DSL) services at rates comparable to those found in urban areas around the state. Deployment of fiber in the loop further enhances our ability to offer other broadband services.

Sources

Victim siteetex.net/

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.

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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

March 16, 2023Etex Communications 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 Telecommunications sector, which has 87 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Etex Communications 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 Etex Communications 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.