Was Bells Tax Service hit by ransomware?

Bells Tax Service was listed by the Eldorado 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 Eldorado ransomware group?

Eldorado 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 Bells Tax Service breach?

Eldorado published data attributed to Bells Tax Service, around 25 Employees records. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Bells Tax Service

Claimed by Eldorado · listed 2 years ago

25 Employees

Records

$5M

Ransom

demanded

20m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedNov 18, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Eldorado
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Financial
Listed on leak site: Nov 18, 2024
Records: 25 Employees
Ransom demanded: $5M

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Bells Tax Service is a small accounting and tax preparation firm based in Modesto, California. They provide bookkeeping, tax preparation for individuals and corporations, partnership formation support, and trust accounting services.

Industry: Tax Preparation & Accounting Services
Address: Modesto, California, United States
Employees: <25

Attack summary

Severity: high — Tax and accounting service provider handling sensitive financial and personal information for multiple clients (PII at scale, tax records, corporate financial data). Data exfiltration confirmed by published disclosure. Small firm size increases relative impact.

Eldorado ransomware group claims to have compromised Bells Tax Service and exfiltrated data. The group has published the breach on their leak site and is demanding $5 million ransom.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Tax records
Client financial information
Corporate and trust accounting data
Partnership formation documents
Bookkeeping records

What the group claims

Accounting Services · California, United States Bells Tax Service | Bells Tax Service Modesto California Modesto Tax Services Bells Tax Service modesto, tax, preparation, corporate, trusts... < 25 Employees Revenue < $5 Million

Sources

Victim sitebellstaxservice.com

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 Eldorado

Eldorado is a recently emerged ransomware group first observed in June 2024, operating with apparent financial motivations and demonstrating a relatively broad targeting approach across multiple countries and industry sectors. The group's origin and affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, with no confirmed links to state actors or established ransomware families, though their operational patterns suggest they likely operate as an independent entity rather than a formal RaaS model. Specific technical details regarding Eldorado's initial access vectors, encryption methods, and data exfiltration capabilities have not been extensively documented in public security research, though their targeting of over 112 victims across diverse sectors including business services, technology, manufacturing, and financial services suggests they employ opportunistic attack methodologies rather than highly specialized techniques. The group has demonstrated a geographic focus primarily on the United States and Canada, with additional activity observed in Italy, UAE, and Croatia, though no specific high-profile campaigns or major ransomware incidents have been publicly attributed to this group by federal agencies or major security firms. As of current reporting, Eldorado appears to remain active with no documented law enforcement disruptions or confirmed rebranding activities, though the limited public visibility of their operations suggests they may be a smaller-scale operation compared to established ransomware families. The group has been linked to 112 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 6, 2024; most recent post January 22, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: el dorado.

Timeline of this disclosure

November 18, 2024Bells Tax Service listed by Eldoradoon the group's public leak site

Records: 25 Employees
Ransom demanded: $5M

Other recent disclosures by Eldorado

Eldorado has been linked to 112 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Eldorado dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Financial sector, which has 426 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Bells Tax Service is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Eldorado means Bells Tax Service 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 Eldorado'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.