Was steppingstonesd.org hit by ransomware?

steppingstonesd.org was listed by the Blacksuit 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 Blacksuit ransomware group?

Blacksuit 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 steppingstonesd.org breach?

Blacksuit published data attributed to steppingstonesd.org. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Stepping Stone of San Diego

listed as steppingstonesd.org · Claimed by Blacksuit · listed 2 years ago

20m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedNov 12, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Blacksuit
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Nov 12, 2024

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Stepping Stone of San Diego is a non-profit organization founded in 1976 that provides residential and outpatient alcohol and drug treatment services, with specialized focus on the LGBTQ community. The organization offers residential treatment, outpatient programs, sober living facilities, and continuing care services across San Diego.

Industry: Substance Abuse & Mental Health Treatment
Founded: 1976

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Data published status indicates exfiltration occurred; non-profit healthcare/mental health treatment provider holding sensitive PII and health records of vulnerable populations (substance abuse clients, LGBTQ individuals). However, no proof files shown, no specific data inventory disclosed, and no operational disruption claimed. Sensitivity is elevated due to nature of records but confidence in actual exposure is limited.

Blacksuit claims to have compromised Stepping Stone of San Diego. The leak post provides only generic description of the organization with no specific details of data exfiltrated, encryption, or operational impact stated.

medium

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Patient/client records
Personal health information
Financial data

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

Stepping Stones is a non-profit organization focused on providing educational and therapeutic services to individuals with developmental disabilities. It offers a range of programs aimed at enhancing the quality of life and fostering independence for children and adults. The organization emphasizes personalized care, community integration, and skill development to support its members and their families.

Sources

Victim sitesteppingstonesd.org
Leak posthttp://weg7sdx54bevnvulapqu6bpzwztryeflq3s23tegbmnhkbpqz637f2yd.onion/?id=aJFiR5L0qK9JjN4i

Source

Indexed 2 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 Blacksuit

Blacksuit is a financially motivated ransomware group that emerged in June 2023, quickly establishing itself as a significant threat with 184 documented victims across multiple sectors. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reports, though their operational patterns suggest they operate as an independent entity rather than a traditional RaaS model. Blacksuit primarily targets organizations through common initial access vectors and employs standard ransomware deployment techniques, though detailed technical analysis of their specific encryption methods and whether they consistently employ double extortion tactics has not been widely published by major security firms. The group has demonstrated a clear preference for targeting business services, healthcare, government, and manufacturing sectors, with their victims predominantly located in English-speaking countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, as well as Spain and Germany. As of current reporting, Blacksuit remains an active ransomware operation with no publicly documented law enforcement disruptions or significant rebranding efforts. The group has been linked to 184 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 12, 2023; most recent post June 2, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: black suit.

Timeline of this disclosure

November 12, 2024steppingstonesd.org listed by Blacksuiton the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Blacksuit

Blacksuit has been linked to 184 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Blacksuit dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 1,085 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, steppingstonesd.org is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Blacksuit means steppingstonesd.org 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 Blacksuit'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.