Disclosure context

About qilin

Qilin is a ransomware group that emerged in October 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations through targeted attacks against organizations across multiple sectors. The group appears to operate independently with limited public information available regarding their specific country of origin or affiliations to other ransomware families. Qilin employs double extortion tactics, typically exfiltrating sensitive data before deploying their encryption payload, though specific details about their initial access vectors and technical tools remain less documented in public security research. The group has demonstrated a broad targeting approach, with their 1645 known victims spanning multiple countries including the United States, France, Canada, United Kingdom, and Germany, with particular focus on manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and business services sectors. Based on available intelligence reporting, Qilin remains an active threat as of recent assessments, continuing their ransomware operations without significant reported law enforcement disruption. The group has been linked to 1,857 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 8, 2022; most recent post May 20, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

May 4, 2026City of Sandstone listed by qilinon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Public Sector sector, which has 259 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, City of Sandstone is reported in US, a country with 2,713 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 Sandstone

Claimed by qilin · listed 17 days ago

16d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
May 4, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: qilin
Status: Data leaked
Country: US
Sector: Public Sector
Listed on leak site: May 4, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The City of Sandstone is a municipal government located in Sandstone, Minnesota (ZIP 55072). It provides local government services including administration, public works, water and sewer utilities, fire department, and parks and recreation. The city operates standard weekday office hours and maintains a public-facing website via Catalis government web services.

Industry: Municipal Government
Address: 119 Fourth Street, Sandstone, MN 55072

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published (data_published status) by a ransomware group targeting a municipal government entity, which likely holds citizen PII, utility billing records, and other regulated government data. Publication of local government data at scale constitutes high severity, though lack of confirmed volume or specific regulated-data categories prevents a critical rating.

The Qilin ransomware group claims to have attacked the City of Sandstone, with the disclosure status recorded as data_published, indicating data has been exfiltrated and released. No specific details about the nature or volume of the published data are provided in the leak post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Municipal government records
Utility billing data
Resident/citizen PII (inferred)
Administrative documents
City planning and zoning records

What the group claims

N/A

The leak post

captured from the group's site

Qilin blog Sorting Created At Name Bluize Software Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Mayer Law Firms & Legal Services Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Spirit Medical Transport Ambulance Services Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Domaine Des Tournels Manufacturing Company url May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Johnson Carter Architects Architecture, Engineering & Design Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More LTJ Industrial Services Industrial Machinery & Equipment Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Brand X Hydrovac Services Civil Engineering Construction Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More John G Yphantides A Professional Law Law Firms & Legal Services Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More One Legal Law Firms & Legal Services Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More The Gravity Group Architecture, Engineering & Design Company url Zoom Info May 12, 2026 3 photos Learn More Mediapost Spain Advertising & Marketing Company url Zoom Info May 12, 2026 13 photos Learn More + 6 more AppDirect Software Company url Zoom Info May 11, 2026 0 photos …

Sources

Source

Indexed 17 days 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.