Was Petco hit by ransomware?

Petco was listed by the Hunters International 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 Hunters International ransomware group?

Hunters International 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 Petco breach?

Hunters International published data attributed to Petco. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Petco

Claimed by Hunters International · listed 9 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedOct 3, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Hunters International
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Consumer Services
Listed on leak site: Oct 3, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Petco is a leading pet specialty retailer headquartered in San Diego, California, operating more than 1,500 locations across the United States and Puerto Rico. The company offers pet food, supplies, grooming, veterinary services, and dog training. Petco serves millions of pet owners and is one of the largest specialty pet retailers in North America.

Industry: Pet Specialty Retail
Address: 10850 Via Frontera, San Diego, CA 92127, United States
Employees: 10000+
Founded: 1965

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data is marked as published ('data_published') by a known ransomware group against a major retailer with millions of customers, indicating confirmed exfiltration of potentially significant business and customer data at scale. The lack of specifics on data type prevents a 'critical' rating.

Hunters International claims to have compromised Petco and has published data, indicating exfiltration of company data; however, no specific data size or ransom amount has been stated in the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Customer records
Employee data
Business operational data

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

Petco is a leading pet specialty retailer in the US providing essential pet products and services. Founded in 1965, it offers a variety of pet food, supplies, and services such as grooming and dog training. Petco operates more than 1,500 locations across the US and Puerto Rico. Its goal is to improve the lives of pets, pet parents, and Petco employees.

Source

Indexed 9 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 Hunters International

Hunters International is a ransomware group that emerged in October 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations and demonstrating rapid expansion in their victim targeting across multiple sectors. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undocumented by major security agencies, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent ransomware operation rather than a established Ransomware-as-a-Service model. Based on publicly available victim data, Hunters International has demonstrated a preference for targeting business services, technology, and manufacturing sectors, with their attacks primarily concentrated in English-speaking countries including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. Their attack methodology and specific technical capabilities have not been extensively documented by major threat intelligence organizations such as CISA, FBI, or Mandiant, limiting detailed analysis of their initial access vectors, encryption methods, or data exfiltration practices. With 388 documented victims since their emergence, the group has shown consistent activity levels, though specific high-profile campaigns or notable ransom demands have not been widely reported in public threat intelligence reports. As of current reporting, Hunters International appears to remain active with no documented law enforcement disruptions or operational changes reported by major cybersecurity agencies. The group has been linked to 695 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 20, 2023; most recent post March 26, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: Hunters.

Timeline of this disclosure

October 3, 2025Petco listed by Hunters Internationalon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Hunters International

Hunters International has been linked to 695 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Hunters International dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Consumer Services sector, which has 829 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Petco is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Hunters International means Petco 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 Hunters International'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.