Disclosure context

About apt73

APT73 is a recently emerged ransomware group that began operations in April 2024, with financial motivation as their primary driver based on their targeting patterns across multiple high-value sectors. The group has demonstrated rapid growth in their operational tempo, accumulating 78 documented victims within their first months of activity. Their targeting methodology shows a preference for English-speaking markets and major economies, with the United Kingdom and United States representing their primary focus areas, followed by significant activity in India, Brazil, and France. The group exhibits a clear preference for high-value sectors including business services, technology, financial services, and healthcare organizations, suggesting a calculated approach to victim selection based on potential payment capability and operational impact. Given the group's recent emergence and limited public documentation from major threat intelligence sources, specific details regarding their initial access vectors, tooling, encryption methods, or organizational structure remain largely unconfirmed by authoritative sources such as CISA, FBI, or established security research firms. The group's current operational status appears active based on the timeline of their emergence, though comprehensive analysis of their capabilities and infrastructure requires additional intelligence gathering and documentation by security researchers. The group has been linked to 141 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on April 22, 2024; most recent post April 27, 2026. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: Eraleign.

Timeline of this disclosure

April 27, 2026moccae.gov.ae listed by apt73on 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, moccae.gov.ae is reported in AE, a country with 32 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

Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (UAE)

listed as moccae.gov.ae · Claimed by apt73 · listed 23 days ago

23d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Apr 27, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: apt73
Status: Data leaked
Country: AE
Sector: Public Sector
Listed on leak site: Apr 27, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) is a federal government ministry of the United Arab Emirates, headquartered in Abu Dhabi. It is responsible for formulating and overseeing national policies on climate change, biodiversity, food safety, air quality, marine environment, agricultural and animal health, and chemical/waste management. The ministry provides regulatory services including import/export licensing, registration certificates, and veterinary and environmental compliance functions.

Industry: Government – Environmental & Climate Policy
Address: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The victim is a sovereign UAE federal government ministry; the disclosed status is 'data_published', meaning data has already been released publicly. Government ministries handle sensitive regulatory, citizen PII, and nationally significant environmental and biosecurity data, making any confirmed exfiltration and publication a critical-severity incident.

The group APT73 claims to have exfiltrated data from the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (moccae.gov.ae) and has published the data ('data_published' status), though no specific data volume or ransom demand was stated in the post.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Government ministry data
Environmental regulatory records
Registration and accreditation certificates
Import/export licensing data
Chemical substances registry
Veterinary product records
Citizen/entity interaction data

What the group claims

The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (moccae.gov.ae) is a government ministry in the Un...

Sources

Victim sitemoccae.gov.ae
Leak posthttp://basherq53eniermxovo3bkduw5qqq5bkqcml3qictfmamgvmzovykyqd.onion/page_company.php?id=138

Source

Indexed 23 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.