Was Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc hit by ransomware?

Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc was listed by the Meow ransomware operation (United States), and stolen data was published on the group's leak site. Darkfield tracks this disclosure with the original leak post, screenshot and group context.

Who is the Meow ransomware group?

Meow is a ransomware operator tracked by Darkfield. See the full operator dossier for its known victims, sectors targeted, IOCs and leak-site infrastructure.

What data was leaked in the Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc breach?

Meow published data attributed to Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc (~40 GB). Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc

Claimed by Meow · listed 2 years ago

40 GB

Data size

20m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedNov 14, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Meow
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Business Services
Listed on leak site: Nov 14, 2024
Data size: 40 GB

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc. is a family-owned asphalt and concrete paving company based in Everett, Pennsylvania, with over 40 years of operational experience. They provide paving, drilling, shoring, site development, bridge construction, and design-build services to residential, commercial, and municipal clients across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and nationally.

Industry: Construction & Infrastructure Services
Address: Everett, Pennsylvania, United States

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Confirmed exfiltration and publication of regulated sensitive data at scale: PII (passport/license scans, DOB, identification), health insurance records (regulated under HIPAA), financial data (bank details, credit reports), and commercial contracts affecting multiple jurisdictions.

Meow claims to have exfiltrated approximately 40 GB of confidential data from Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc., including employee personal information, client details, financial records, contracts, and medical information. The group has published this data.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Employee personal details
Passport scans
Driver's license scans
Client contact information
Service agreements
Insurance policies
Project contracts
Invoices
Bank account details
Credit reports
Dates of birth
Identification documents
Health insurance details

What the group claims

Dear customers!We are pleased to offer exclusive access to over 40 GB of confidential data from Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc., a family owned company with over 40 years of expertise in paving and infrastructure services. Based in Everett, Pennsylvania, Cottles serves clients across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and supports larger projects nationwide. The company specializes in asphalt and concrete paving for residential, commercial, and municipal projects, delivering durable solutions for driveways, parking lots, and roadways.Key Services Offered: Asphalt and Concrete Paving: High quality paving for various infrastructure needs. Drilling and Shoring: Including conventional and down the hole hammer drilling, and earth shoring systems like HPile, sheeting, and trench boxes. Site Development: Services include excavation, stormwater management, and utility installation. Bridge Construction and Rehabilitation: Expertise in projects ranging from residential bridges to interstate highway structures. Design Build Services: Comprehensive project design, build, and permitting support to ensure regulatory compliance.Cottles Asphalt Maintenance is committed to delivering high quality work with integrity and fairness, supported by a dedicated team ensuring efficiency and excellence in every project.This comprehensive data pack includes: Employee Data: Personal details, passport and drivers license scans. Client Information: Contact details, service agreements. Contracts and Commercial Agreements: Insurance policies and project contracts. Financial Documents: Invoices, bank account details, credit reports. Personal Data: Dates of birth, identification documents. Medical Information: Health insurance details and related records. And much more.This data pack provides a unique look into Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc.s operations, making it invaluable for professionals in construction, infrastructure,

Sources

Leak posthttp://meow6xanhzfci2gbkn3lmbqq7xjjufskkdfocqdngt3ltvzgqpsg5mid.onion/product/129

Source

Indexed 2 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.

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Disclosure context

About Meow

Meow is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in November 2023, primarily motivated by financial gain through extortion activities targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group has compromised at least 145 known victims in a short operational timeframe, demonstrating rapid scaling of their criminal enterprise. Based on their targeting patterns, Meow appears to focus heavily on English-speaking countries, with the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada representing their primary victim base, though they have also expanded operations to include targets in Italy and Colombia. The group shows a preference for attacking business services organizations, manufacturing companies, healthcare institutions, and agriculture and food production entities, suggesting they may employ broad-spectrum targeting rather than highly specialized sector focus. Their emergence in late 2023 and the significant victim count achieved in a relatively short period indicates either a sophisticated operation with experienced operators or potential links to existing ransomware ecosystems, though specific details about their attack methodology, initial access vectors, encryption techniques, or data exfiltration practices have not been extensively documented by major threat intelligence sources. Given the recent timeline of their emergence and limited public reporting from established security researchers, detailed technical analysis of their tools, tactics, and procedures remains sparse. The group appears to remain active as of current reporting, though comprehensive law enforcement actions or major disruption efforts have not been publicly documented. The group has been linked to 145 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 24, 2023; most recent post November 19, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

November 14, 2024Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc listed by Meowon the group's public leak site

Data size: 40 GB

Other recent disclosures by Meow

Meow has been linked to 145 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Meow dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Business Services sector, which has 3,796 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Meow means Cottles Asphalt Maintenance Inc appeared on a ransomware extortion site and data attributed to it has been published. If this is your organisation, or a supplier you depend on, the priority is to confirm the intrusion and contain it before the window to act closes.

Engage your incident-response team and preserve forensic evidence before remediating — do not wipe affected systems first.
Force a password reset and revoke active sessions for exposed accounts; rotate any credentials, API keys or certificates that may have been in the stolen data.
Assess regulatory notification duties (GDPR, NIS2, sector regulators) — many carry a 72-hour reporting clock from awareness.
Report the incident to your national CERT, CISA (United States), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Meow's leak site and across paste and breach channels, and brief downstream partners who may be exposed through you.

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.