Dragonforce is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in December 2023, operating with apparent financial motivations based on their targeting patterns and victim selection. The group's origin and potential affiliations remain unclear due to limited public documentation from established threat intelligence sources, though their rapid accumulation of 439 documented victims suggests either sophisticated capabilities or possible connections to existing ransomware infrastructure. Based on their targeting patterns across diverse sectors including manufacturing, business services, technology, and construction, Dragonforce appears to employ opportunistic attack methodologies, though specific initial access vectors, encryption methods, and extortion tactics have not been publicly detailed by major security firms or law enforcement agencies. The group has demonstrated a preference for targeting organizations primarily in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, with the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Italy representing their most frequent victim locations, suggesting possible language capabilities or geographic operational preferences. As of current reporting, Dragonforce appears to remain active given their recent emergence and ongoing victim acquisition, though the lack of detailed public analysis from major threat intelligence organizations indicates either operational security measures that have limited researcher visibility or that the group has not yet conducted sufficiently high-profile attacks to warrant extensive public documentation by CISA, FBI, or established security research firms. The group has been linked to 541 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on December 13, 2023; most recent post May 24, 2026. The operation is currently active.
Sector and geography
This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Agriculture and Food Production sector, which has 536 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Heartland Growers 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.
