Was stanleyconsultants.com hit by ransomware?

stanleyconsultants.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 stanleyconsultants.com breach?

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

Ransomware victim disclosure

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stanleyconsultants.com

Claimed by Cactus · listed 1 year ago

$190.5M

Ransom

demanded

16m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedFeb 28, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Cactus
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Business Services
Listed on leak site: Feb 28, 2025
Ransom demanded: $190.5M
Estimated revenue: $190.5M

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Stanley Consultants is a member-owned engineering firm with over 110 years of history, operating in more than 20 offices worldwide. They provide engineering, design, and consulting solutions across energy, transportation, water, industrial, and infrastructure sectors, with work in all 50 U.S. states and more than 120 countries.

Industry: Engineering Consulting & Design Services
Address: 225 Iowa Ave, Muscatine, Iowa 52761, United States

Attack summary

Severity: high — Confirmed exfiltration of significant business data including customer information, project details, and contractual documents from a major engineering consultancy. The $190.5M revenue scale and global client base (120+ countries) indicate exposure of commercially sensitive and potentially client-identifying information.

Cactus claims to have exfiltrated corporate documents, project drawings, customer information, contracts, and project data from Stanley Consultants. The group has published proof files and created Tor mirrors to advertise access to the stolen data.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

corporate documents
project drawings
customer information
contracts and agreements
project data
corporate correspondence
roadway plans
subconsultant agreements
signalization plans

The group's post references roughly 5 proof files.

What the group claims

Business Services. “Stanley Consultants is a member-owned engineering firm with a rich history of helping clients across the globe solve complex challenges ranging from energy and transportation to water and industry. We have members in more than 20 offices worldwide, and we have worked in all 50 states and more than 120 countries.” Website: <a href="https://www.stanleyconsultants.com/">https://www.stanleyconsultants.com/</a> Revenue : $190.5M Address: 225 Iowa Ave, Muscatine, Iowa, 52761, United States Phone Number: (563) 264-6600 Download link #1: <a href="https://6wuivqgrv2g7brcwhjw5co3vligiqowpumzkcyebku7i2busrvlxnzid.onion/STANLEYCONSULTANTS/PROOF/">https://6wuivqgrv2g7brcwhjw5co3vligiqowpumzkcyebku7i2busrvlxnzid.onion/STANLEYCONSULTANTS/PROOF/</a> Mirror: <a href="https://cactus5dqnqkppa5ayckiyk6dttpqwczdqphv5mxh4dkk5ct544q5aad.onion/STANLEYCONSULTANTS/PROOF/">https://cactus5dqnqkppa5ayckiyk6dttpqwczdqphv5mxh4dkk5ct544q5aad.onion/STANLEYCONSULTANTS/PROOF/</a> DATA DESCRIPTIONS: Corporate documents, projects, drawings, customer information, agreements\contracts, project data, corporate correspondence, etc.<img src="/uploads/TEDS_Subconsultant_Agreement_REVISED_Fully_Executed_af7d8d37b3.png" alt="TEDS Subconsultant Agreement_REVISED_Fully Executed.png"><img src="/uploads/20240402_H_015052_100_PP_QAQC_ROADWAY_PLANS_FOR_FOREST_REVIEW_313f1bce6c.png" alt="20240402_H.015052_100%PP_QAQC_ROADWAY_PLANS_FOR_FOREST_REVIEW.png"><img src="/uploads/045272_Advertisement_23530_Stanley_Consultants_LOR_9_13_22_feaab45c86.png" alt="045272-Advertisement 23530-Stanley Consultants LOR-9-13-22.png"><img src="/uploads/TWO_1_2022_04_Stanley_signed_56b42ba91c.png" alt="TWO 1_2022-04_Stanley-signed.png"><img src="/uploads/44972015201_PLANS_03_SIGNALIZATION_REV_2_5312f6

Sources

Victim sitestanleyconsultants.com
Leak posthttps://cactusbloguuodvqjmnzlwetjlpj6aggc6iocwhuupb47laukux7ckid.onion/posts/STANLEYCONSULTANTS

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

February 28, 2025stanleyconsultants.com listed by Cactuson the group's public leak site

Ransom demanded: $190.5M

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 Business Services sector, which has 3,796 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, stanleyconsultants.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 stanleyconsultants.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.