Was Northern NJ Eye Institute hit by ransomware?

Northern NJ Eye Institute was listed by the thegentlemen 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 thegentlemen ransomware group?

thegentlemen 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 Northern NJ Eye Institute breach?

thegentlemen published data attributed to Northern NJ Eye Institute. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Northern NJ Eye Institute

Claimed by Thegentlemen · listed 13 days ago

12d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedSep 30, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Thegentlemen
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Healthcare
Listed on leak site: Sep 30, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Northern New Jersey Eye Institute (NNJEI) is a family-run ophthalmology practice and ambulatory surgery center operating for 30+ years with locations in South Orange, West Caldwell, and Elizabeth, NJ. The practice specializes in cataract surgery, LASIK/LASEK/PRK vision correction, glaucoma treatment, and cosmetic eye services, with an AAAHC-accredited operating room. Lead surgeon Charles J. Crane, MD is a pioneer in minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) techniques and clinical researcher.

Industry: Ophthalmology & Ambulatory Surgery Center
Address: South Orange, NJ; clinics also in West Caldwell and Elizabeth
Employees: 15-18

Attack summary

Severity: high — Healthcare provider; likely exfiltration of patient PII and protected health information (PHI). Healthcare data is regulated under HIPAA and is inherently sensitive at scale, even without explicit proof files advertised in the truncated post.

The threat actor claims to have accessed and exfiltrated data from Northern NJ Eye Institute. The leak post does not explicitly state the type of data compromised or confirm whether data was published; it appears to be an announcement of the attack with attribution to the victim.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Patient medical records
Insurance information
Practice business data

What the group claims

nnjei.com zoominfo.com/c/northern-nj-eye-institute/70059294 Northern New Jersey Eye Institute / NNJEI (30+ years, nnjei.com, South Orange, NJ) is a family-run ophthalmology practice and ambulatory surgery center with clinics in South Orange, West Caldwell and Elizabeth. It treats cataracts (its signature "no-needle, no-stitch, no-patch" surgery), LASIK/LASEK/PRK vision correction, glaucoma, corneal and retinal disease, diabetic eye care and cosmetic eye services, with its own AAAHC-accredited operating room and acceptance of Medicare plus 13+ insurance plans. Its standout edge is clinical research: lead surgeon Charles J. Crane, MD (4.9/5 from 127 Zocdoc reviews, NJ Top Docs 2024) was among the first ~100 doctors in the US to implant the Glaukos iDose TR and among fewer than 15 in FDA trials for iStent infinite — pioneering MIGS glaucoma treatments, with results published in 2025–26 journals. The practice books about $3.2M revenue with 15–18 staff and holds a solid 79/100 CMS MIPS

Sources

Victim sitennjei.com

Source

Indexed 13 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.

Is this your supplier? Your competitor? You?

Pro plans monitor your domain, corporate emails, and crypto wallets across every new ransomware leak-site post, breach dump and Telegram callout — alerts within 5 minutes.

Disclosure context

About thegentlemen

thegentlemen is a ransomware group that emerged in September 2025, operating with apparent financial motivations based on their broad targeting of commercial sectors. The group has documented 267 victims across multiple countries, with primary focus on the United States, Thailand, France, Brazil, and India. Their targeting strategy demonstrates a preference for high-value sectors including manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and financial services organizations. Given the group's recent emergence and limited public documentation from established threat intelligence sources such as CISA, FBI, or major security research firms, specific details regarding their country of origin, operational structure, attack methodologies, encryption techniques, and whether they employ ransomware-as-a-service models remain unclear. The relatively high victim count of 267 in a short operational timeframe since September 2025 suggests either an aggressive campaign pace or potential inflation of victim numbers through affiliate operations, though without corroborating intelligence reports, the group's exact operational capabilities and notable campaigns cannot be definitively established. Current intelligence indicates the group remains active as of late 2025, though comprehensive threat profiling requires additional validated reporting from authoritative cybersecurity sources. The group has been linked to 966 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 9, 2025; most recent post October 12, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: the gentlemen.

Timeline of this disclosure

September 30, 2026Northern NJ Eye Institute listed by thegentlemen on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by thegentlemen

thegentlemen has been linked to 966 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full thegentlemen dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Healthcare sector, which has 2,610 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Northern NJ Eye Institute is reported in United States, a country with 3,176 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by thegentlemen means Northern NJ Eye Institute 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 thegentlemen'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.