Was Intsika Yethu Municipality Government hit by ransomware?

Intsika Yethu Municipality Government was listed by the thegentlemen ransomware operation (South Africa), 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 thegentlemen ransomware group?

thegentlemen 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 Intsika Yethu Municipality Government breach?

thegentlemen published data attributed to Intsika Yethu Municipality Government. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Intsika Yethu Municipality Government

Claimed by Thegentlemen · listed 4 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedFeb 15, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Thegentlemen
Status: Data leaked
Country: South Africa
Sector: Public Sector
Listed on leak site: Feb 15, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Intsika Yethu Municipality is a local government authority located in Cofimvaba, Eastern Cape, South Africa. It provides municipal services across multiple directorates including infrastructure, community services, budget and treasury, and local economic development. The municipality serves a rural population across multiple wards and towns within its jurisdictional area.

Industry: Local Government / Municipal Services
Address: 201 Main Street, Cofimvaba, 5380, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Attack summary

Severity: high — This is a confirmed data_published disclosure against a government municipality, which likely holds citizen PII, financial records, procurement data, and sensitive administrative documents. Public sector breaches at municipal level typically involve regulated personal data of residents and employees, warranting a high severity rating even without full visibility into the leaked dataset.

The group 'thegentlemen' claims to have attacked Intsika Yethu Municipality and the disclosure status is listed as data_published, suggesting exfiltration and release of data. The leak post content is obscured by a bot-verification page, preventing detailed confirmation of specific claims.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Government administrative records
Municipal financial documents
Budget and treasury records
Tender and procurement documents
Performance agreements
IDP reports
Staff/personnel records (possible)
Resident/citizen PII (possible)

What the group claims

intsikayethu.gov.za zoominfo.com/c/intsika-yethu-municipality/454709330 Intsika Yethu Municipality is an administrative area located in the Chris Hani District of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The municipality focuses on sustainable development through sound governance and infrastructure provision, catering to the local community's needs. It offers various services including local economic development, community services, and infrastructure planning. The intended clients are the residents

The leak post

captured from the group's site

Gentlecloud Protection 🛡️ Gentlecloud Verifying your browser... Initializing security checks... I'm not a bot

Sources

Victim siteintsikayethu.gov.za
Leak posthttp://tezwsse5czllksjb7cwp65rvnk4oobmzti2znn42i43bjdfd2prqqkad.onion

Source

Indexed 4 months 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 thegentlemen

thegentlemen is a ransomware group that emerged in September 2025, operating with apparent financial motivations based on their broad targeting of commercial sectors. The group has documented 267 victims across multiple countries, with primary focus on the United States, Thailand, France, Brazil, and India. Their targeting strategy demonstrates a preference for high-value sectors including manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and financial services organizations. Given the group's recent emergence and limited public documentation from established threat intelligence sources such as CISA, FBI, or major security research firms, specific details regarding their country of origin, operational structure, attack methodologies, encryption techniques, and whether they employ ransomware-as-a-service models remain unclear. The relatively high victim count of 267 in a short operational timeframe since September 2025 suggests either an aggressive campaign pace or potential inflation of victim numbers through affiliate operations, though without corroborating intelligence reports, the group's exact operational capabilities and notable campaigns cannot be definitively established. Current intelligence indicates the group remains active as of late 2025, though comprehensive threat profiling requires additional validated reporting from authoritative cybersecurity sources. The group has been linked to 483 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 9, 2025; most recent post June 11, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: the gentlemen.

Timeline of this disclosure

February 15, 2026Intsika Yethu Municipality Government listed by thegentlemenon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by thegentlemen

thegentlemen has been linked to 483 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full thegentlemen dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Public Sector sector, which has 260 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Intsika Yethu Municipality Government is reported in South Africa, a country with 15 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by thegentlemen means Intsika Yethu Municipality Government 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 thegentlemen'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.