Was Williamson Dacar Associates hit by ransomware?

Williamson Dacar Associates was listed by the thegentlemen ransomware operation (United Kingdom), 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 Williamson Dacar Associates breach?

thegentlemen published data attributed to Williamson Dacar Associates. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Williamson Design Associates (WDA Studio)

listed as Williamson Dacar Associates · Claimed by Thegentlemen · listed 12 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 Kingdom
Sector: Professional Services
Listed on leak site: Sep 30, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Williamson Design Associates (formerly Williamson Dacar Associates) is a Florida-based architecture and engineering firm founded in 1994, specializing in K-12 educational facilities, colleges, libraries, government buildings and houses of worship. With approximately 31 staff and offices in Clearwater and Boca Raton, the firm has completed over 300 educational projects across 30+ years.

Industry: Architecture, Engineering & Interior Design
Address: Clearwater, Florida; Boca Raton, Florida, USA
Employees: 31
Founded: 1994

Attack summary

Severity: low — No proof files or screenshots advertised; no data inventory detailed; no operational disruption stated; only listing/announcement of breach with no substantive evidence or impact disclosure.

The group claims to have accessed and published data from Williamson Design Associates. No specific details regarding encryption, exfiltration scope, or data types are stated in the leak post.

low

What the group claims

williamsondacar.com zoominfo.com/c/williamson-dacar-associates-inc/131629505 Williamson Dacar Associates, Inc. (founded 1994, Clearwater, Florida; now branded Williamson Design Associates / WDA Studio, wdastudio.com) is an award-winning small-business architecture, engineering and interior-design firm specializing in Florida's K-12 schools, colleges, libraries, government buildings and houses of worship. Led by founder and President Ted Williamson, AIA, PE with ~31 staff and offices in Clearwater and Boca Raton, the firm has completed 300+ educational projects over 30+ years — including a $796K jail secure-entry-center contract for Pinellas County, major campus renovations for Pinellas/Palm Beach/Volusia school districts, and new facilities for St. Petersburg College, Palm Beach State College and New College of Florida. Its South Florida co-director Thomas Donaudy (ex-Florida Atlantic University architect, 200+ school projects) retired in January 2026, marking a leadership transition

Sources

Victim sitewilliamsondacar.com

Source

Indexed 12 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.

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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, 2026Williamson Dacar Associates 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 Professional Services sector, which has 17 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Williamson Dacar Associates is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 377 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by thegentlemen means Williamson Dacar Associates 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, NCSC (United Kingdom), 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.