Was wattlerange.sa.gov.au hit by ransomware?

wattlerange.sa.gov.au was listed by the lockbit3 ransomware operation (Australia), 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 lockbit3 ransomware group?

lockbit3 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 wattlerange.sa.gov.au breach?

lockbit3 published data attributed to wattlerange.sa.gov.au. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Wattle Range Council

listed as wattlerange.sa.gov.au · Claimed by Lockbit3 · listed 2 years ago

23m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJul 19, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Lockbit3
Status: Data leaked
Country: Australia
Sector: Government
Listed on leak site: Jul 19, 2024

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Wattle Range Council is a local government authority in South Australia responsible for municipal services and community governance in the Wattle Range region. The council operates under principles of transparent and accountable public administration.

Industry: Local Government Administration

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Data has been published by the threat actor (confirmed disclosed status), indicating successful exfiltration from a government entity. However, the specific data types and sensitivity level cannot be determined from the truncated leak post, and no proof files or inventories are described in the available information.

LockBit3 claims to have compromised Wattle Range Council and published data. The specific data exfiltrated and operational impact are not detailed in the available leak post excerpt.

medium

What the group claims

Wattle Range Council is committed to the principle of honest, open and accountable government and encourages community participation in the business

Sources

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 lockbit3

LockBit 3.0, also known as LockBit Black, is a prominent ransomware-as-a-service operation that emerged in June 2022 as the third major iteration of the LockBit ransomware family, operating with primarily financial motivations and becoming one of the most prolific ransomware groups globally. The group is believed to operate from Russia or former Soviet states, functioning as a sophisticated RaaS platform that recruits affiliates to conduct attacks while the core group maintains the ransomware infrastructure and negotiates with victims. LockBit 3.0 employs multiple initial access vectors including exploitation of remote desktop protocols, vulnerable VPN appliances, and phishing campaigns, utilizing a fast-encrypting ransomware payload that can complete network-wide encryption in minutes while implementing triple extortion tactics that include data theft, encryption, and threats to leak stolen information on their dedicated leak site called "LockBit Black Blog." The group has claimed responsibility for attacks against thousands of organizations worldwide, with notable victims including major corporations and critical infrastructure entities across their primary target countries of the United States, France, United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy, focusing heavily on business services, technology, manufacturing, healthcare, and government sectors. Despite law enforcement disruptions including Operation Cronos in February 2024 which temporarily seized their infrastructure and websites, LockBit has demonstrated resilience by quickly rebuilding their operations and continuing to recruit new affiliates and victims. The group has been linked to 2,016 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 29, 2022; most recent post December 5, 2025. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

July 19, 2024wattlerange.sa.gov.au listed by lockbit3on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by lockbit3

lockbit3 has been linked to 2,016 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full lockbit3 dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Government sector, which has 685 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, wattlerange.sa.gov.au is reported in Australia, a country with 455 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by lockbit3 means wattlerange.sa.gov.au 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, ACSC (Australia), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on lockbit3'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.