Disclosure context

About Groove

Groove is a relatively minor ransomware operation that emerged in September 2021, primarily motivated by financial gain through extortion activities. The group's origin and affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, with limited information available about their operational structure or potential ties to other cybercriminal organizations. Based on available data, Groove has demonstrated a focused targeting approach, with documented attacks against media sector organizations, though their specific attack methodologies, initial access vectors, and technical capabilities have not been extensively analyzed or reported by major security firms. The group's operational scale appears limited, with only 13 known victims documented in public reporting, suggesting either a smaller operation or one that has maintained a relatively low profile compared to major ransomware families. Groove's current operational status remains unclear due to the limited public documentation and intelligence reporting available about this particular threat actor. The group has been linked to 13 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 9, 2021; most recent post October 30, 2021. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

October 22, 2021hagerstownpd.org listed by Grooveon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

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

Hagerstown Police Department

listed as hagerstownpd.org · Claimed by Groove · listed 5 years ago

55m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Oct 22, 2021
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Groove
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Government
Listed on leak site: Oct 22, 2021

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Hagerstown Police Department is a municipal law enforcement agency serving Hagerstown, Maryland, United States. As a local government police department, it is responsible for public safety, criminal investigations, and community policing within the city. The domain hagerstownpd.org corresponds to its official public-facing web presence.

Industry: Law Enforcement / Municipal Government
Address: null

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The victim is a municipal law enforcement agency, a government entity whose data likely includes sensitive PII, criminal records, investigation files, and personnel data. Data_published status indicates confirmed exfiltration and public release of what may be regulated government and law enforcement sensitive data, warranting critical severity.

The Groove ransomware group claimed an attack against the Hagerstown Police Department, with the disclosure status recorded as data_published, indicating that data was allegedly exfiltrated and subsequently published. No specific ransom amount or data volume was stated in the available post.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Law enforcement records
Internal police department documents
Potentially personally identifiable information
Potentially criminal investigation files

Sources

Victim sitehagerstownpd.org

Source

Indexed 5 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.