Disclosure context

About Braincipher

Braincipher is a recently emerged ransomware group that was first observed in July 2024, operating with apparent financial motivations and targeting organizations primarily across North America and Europe. The group's origin and potential affiliations remain largely undocumented by major threat intelligence organizations, though their targeting patterns suggest a broad opportunistic approach rather than nation-state backing, likely operating as an independent entity rather than through established ransomware-as-a-service infrastructure. Their attack methodology and specific technical capabilities have not been extensively documented by CISA, FBI, or major security research firms, though their victim distribution across 44 confirmed targets spanning business services, manufacturing, technology, and healthcare sectors indicates a generalist approach to target selection rather than sector-specific expertise. No major high-profile campaigns or significant law enforcement actions have been publicly documented against this group by reputable sources, suggesting either a relatively low-impact operational scale or insufficient intelligence collection on their activities. As of current reporting, the group's operational status remains unclear due to limited public documentation from established threat intelligence sources. The group has been linked to 56 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 1, 2024; most recent post May 13, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: brain cipher.

Timeline of this disclosure

October 20, 2025cdom.org listed by Braincipheron the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 694 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, cdom.org 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.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Catholic Diocese of Memphis

listed as cdom.org · Claimed by Braincipher · listed 7 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Oct 20, 2025
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Braincipher
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Oct 20, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Catholic Diocese of Memphis is a Roman Catholic diocese established in 1971, serving over 70,000 Catholics across 21 counties in West Tennessee. It encompasses 46 parishes and missions and 13 Catholic schools organized across four deaneries, and is led by Bishop David P. Talley. The Diocese administers a broad range of ministries including education, finance, human resources, evangelization, and social services.

Industry: Religious Organization & Diocese Administration
Address: 5825 Shelby Oaks Drive, Memphis, TN 38134-7316
Founded: 1971

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Over 1 TB of data has been confirmed exfiltrated and published from a religious diocese with departments spanning HR, finance, tribunal, safe environment (likely containing abuse-related PII), and schools — indicating large-scale exposure of regulated and sensitive PII affecting staff, clergy, students, parishioners, and potentially abuse victims.

Braincipher claims to have exfiltrated more than 1 TB of data from the Catholic Diocese of Memphis, with the data now published and available for download via multiple Tor onion addresses.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Organizational administrative records
Human resources files
Financial records
Parish and school records
Communications data
Tribunal records
Employee and personnel data
Safe environment program records

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

N/A

The leak post

captured from the group's site

We have more 1TB of data. If you think you are here by mistake, please contact us at [email protected] 
⏳ 11d 22h 39m 6s remaining 
Download: 3fg2gfwrdks46drwvejpgpak5klrflclsjjo35dxtqfk3poeez6oezad.onion If you think you are here by mistake, please contact us at [email protected] 
Download: emdnfl2fv32jhssxcbxlo6dzg2at4d7qbw2md6inz63qzdfgyln5cwyd.onion If you think you are here by mistake, please contact us at [email protected] 
Download: a4vbe7yp4kluped6khuhpr5nmzshiimx2jt5j22ozriiq6ngsm3fcpyd.onion If you think you are here by mistake, please contact us at [email protected] 
Download: x3nb7qcygpem2j5xzstyzdtgzofzkwkx4eko3ug4r73i6uhcgvyffjyd.onion If you think you are here by mistake, please contact us at [email protected] 
Download: 3frnhzcnlkjnw5q3tm6elzizinm2k3bmrtf2xwqjzpcxzeqwn2tv6wyd.onion If you think you are here by mistake, please contact us at [email protected] 
Download: 6ft2dfh26wm3w44orpjcgviutvfp25ez2iyh5ego5egvfmifrws7vvqd.onion If you think you are here by mistake, please contact us at [email protected] 
Download: zijgmuqjzb6dc7pofxhtaiz36qqyg35lhutybmzaz6whzgei2casjgid.onion If you think…

Sources

Source

Indexed 7 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.