Disclosure context

About Cloak

Cloak is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in August 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations and demonstrating a broad international targeting scope with 162 documented victims across multiple sectors. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, though their operational patterns suggest they may operate independently rather than as part of a larger ransomware-as-a-service ecosystem. Limited public documentation exists regarding their specific attack methodologies, encryption techniques, or data exfiltration practices, though their targeting patterns indicate sophisticated capabilities to compromise organizations across diverse sectors including business services, technology, healthcare, and manufacturing. The group has demonstrated a preference for targeting victims in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, with the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, and Italy representing their primary geographic focus areas. Cloak appears to remain active as of current reporting, though the relative scarcity of detailed public analysis from major threat intelligence firms suggests either operational security effectiveness or a lower profile compared to more established ransomware operations. The group has been linked to 162 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on August 24, 2023; most recent post February 24, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

February 24, 2026suffolkva.us listed by Cloakon 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, suffolkva.us 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

City of Suffolk, Virginia

listed as suffolkva.us · Claimed by Cloak · listed 3 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Feb 24, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Cloak
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Public Sector
Listed on leak site: Feb 24, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The City of Suffolk is a municipal government entity located in Suffolk, Virginia, serving as the administrative and public services body for one of the largest cities by land area in Virginia. It provides a broad range of public services including public safety, utilities, planning, and community development to its residents. Suffolk is an independent city in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area.

Industry: Municipal Government
Address: 441 Market Street, Suffolk, Virginia 23434, United States
Employees: 1000-5000
Founded: 1742

Attack summary

Severity: high — The target is a U.S. municipal government entity with data_published status, strongly suggesting confirmed exfiltration of government and potentially citizen PII; public sector breaches carry significant regulatory and public-safety implications even without explicit data inventory details.

The Cloak ransomware group claims to have attacked the City of Suffolk, Virginia, with the disclosure status indicating data has been published. The specific nature of data exfiltrated or encrypted is not detailed in the truncated leak post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Government records
Resident PII
Municipal administrative data
Employee records

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

N/A

Sources

Victim sitesuffolkva.us

Source

Indexed 3 months 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.