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.
If your organisation is affected
A listing by lockbit3 means new blog domain lockbit 5.0 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.
- 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.
