Disclosure context

About Knight

Knight is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in September 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations and demonstrating a focus on targeting critical infrastructure and high-value 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 established ransomware-as-a-service model. With 48 known victims since their emergence, Knight has shown a preference for targeting organizations across the United States, Brazil, Italy, Spain, and Germany, with particular focus on healthcare, manufacturing, media, and government sectors. Their attack methodology and specific technical capabilities have not been extensively documented by major security firms, though their targeting of healthcare and government entities suggests they employ effective initial access techniques and likely utilize double extortion tactics common among contemporary ransomware groups. While specific notable campaigns have not been widely publicized by CISA, FBI, or major security researchers, the group's consistent activity across multiple countries and high-value sectors indicates sustained operational capability. Knight appears to remain active as of current reporting, though detailed technical analysis and specific law enforcement actions against the group have not been publicly documented by authoritative sources. The group has been linked to 48 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 6, 2023; most recent post February 12, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

December 13, 2023cityofdefiance.com listed by Knighton the group's public leak site

Data size: 390 GB

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Government sector, which has 509 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, cityofdefiance.com 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

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City of Defiance

listed as cityofdefiance.com · Claimed by Knight · listed 2 years ago

390 GB

Data size

29m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Dec 13, 2023
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Knight
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Government
Listed on leak site: Dec 13, 2023
Data size: 390 GB

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The City of Defiance is the municipal government and county seat of Defiance County, Ohio, United States, located approximately 55 miles southwest of Toledo. It serves a population of approximately 17,066 residents as of the 2020 census. The city government administers local public services, law enforcement, parks, and civic infrastructure for the northwestern Ohio community.

Industry: Municipal Government
Address: 631 Perry Street, Defiance, Ohio 43512

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Confirmed exfiltration of 390 GB from a municipal government entity including law enforcement video, employee PII, and confidential contracts; data has been published, representing a critical breach of sensitive government and potentially regulated data at scale.

The Knight ransomware group claims to have exfiltrated more than 390 GB of data from the City of Defiance's internal network, including employee files, law enforcement video footage, email, and confidential documents such as contracts. The group has published a 50 MB sample file set as proof and the disclosure status is marked as data published.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Employee files
Law enforcement video footage
Email/mail data
Contracts
Confidential documents

The group's post references roughly 1 proof file.

What the group claims

We have obtained more than 390Gb files on our internal network, which contain employee files,law enforcement video,mail and various confidential documents such as contracts.Defiance,OhioCity in and the county seat of Defiance County, Ohio, United States • Defiance is a city in and the county seat of Defiance County, Ohio, United States, about 55 miles southwest of Toledo and 47 miles northeast of Fort Wayne, Indiana, in Ohio's northwestern corner. The population was 17,066 at the 2020 censusCity of Defiance631 Perry Street Defiance, Ohio 43512Phone: 419-784-2101https://www.facebook.com/cityofdefiance/50MB sample files:https://gofile.io/d/5lGY2F

Sources

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.