Was Sharjah National Oil Corporation hit by ransomware?

Sharjah National Oil Corporation was listed by the Handala ransomware operation (UAE), 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 Handala ransomware group?

Handala 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 Sharjah National Oil Corporation breach?

Handala published data attributed to Sharjah National Oil Corporation (~1.3 TB). Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Sharjah National Oil Corporation

Claimed by Handala · listed 3 months ago

1.3 TB

Data size

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedMar 3, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Handala
Status: Data leaked
Country: UAE
Sector: Energy
Listed on leak site: Mar 3, 2026
Data size: 1.3 TB

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Sharjah National Oil Corporation (SNOC) is a state-owned oil and gas company based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. It is responsible for the exploration, production, and distribution of hydrocarbons within the Emirate of Sharjah and is considered one of the significant energy producers in the UAE. The corporation manages critical energy infrastructure and upstream oil and gas operations in the region.

Industry: Oil & Gas Exploration and Production
Address: Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Attack summary

Severity: critical — 1.3 TB of data allegedly exfiltrated and published from a state-owned critical energy infrastructure operator, including financial records and contracts; this constitutes confirmed large-scale exfiltration from a critical infrastructure entity in the energy sector.

Handala Hack claims to have exfiltrated 1.3 TB of confidential data from Sharjah National Oil Corporation, including financial data, oil contracts, and project details, and has published the data. The group also claims to have disrupted the company's critical infrastructure.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Financial data
Oil contracts
Project details
Confidential corporate documents

What the group claims

Today, one of the UAE’s largest oil and gas giants, Sharjah National Oil Corporation, has fallen to a decisive blow from us, Handala Hack. Your critical infrastructure, the very heart of the region’s energy production and distribution, was dismantled in moments. Now, 1.3 terabytes of your most confidential financial data, oil contracts, project details, and…

Sources

Leak posthttps://handala-hack.to/sharjah-national-oil-corporation-hacked/

Source

Indexed 3 months 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 Handala

Handala is a recently emerged ransomware group that first appeared in May 2024, primarily motivated by financial gain with potential geopolitical overtones given their targeting patterns. The group's country of origin remains unclear, though their focus on Israeli targets alongside Western nations suggests possible Middle Eastern connections or sympathies, and it is unknown whether they operate as a standalone group or utilize a Ransomware-as-a-Service model. Limited public information exists regarding their specific attack methodologies, initial access vectors, or technical capabilities, though their rapid accumulation of 164 documented victims suggests they employ effective compromise techniques across multiple sectors including technology, government, energy, and healthcare organizations. The group has demonstrated a clear preference for targeting victims in Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom, with additional activity observed in Iran and the UAE, indicating either opportunistic targeting or strategic selection based on geopolitical considerations. Given their recent emergence and continued victim acquisitions throughout 2024, Handala appears to remain active, though comprehensive technical analysis and law enforcement reporting on their operations remain limited due to their relatively short operational history. The group has been linked to 182 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on May 26, 2024; most recent post April 15, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

March 3, 2026Sharjah National Oil Corporation listed by Handalaon the group's public leak site

Data size: 1.3 TB

Other recent disclosures by Handala

Handala has been linked to 182 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Handala dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Energy sector, which has 375 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Sharjah National Oil Corporation is reported in UAE, a country with 41 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Handala means Sharjah National Oil Corporation 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 Handala'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.