Was Aero-Coating hit by ransomware?

Aero-Coating was listed by the Qilin ransomware operation (Germany), 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 Qilin ransomware group?

Qilin 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 Aero-Coating breach?

Qilin published data attributed to Aero-Coating. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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AERO-COATING GmbH

listed as Aero-Coating · Claimed by Qilin · listed 5 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJan 15, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Qilin
Status: Data leaked
Country: Germany
Sector: Manufacturing
Listed on leak site: Jan 15, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

AERO-COATING GmbH is an independent, EN 9100-certified surface coating service provider located in Wismar, Germany, specialising in coatings for structurally critical components in the aerospace and defence sectors. Founded in 1994, the company offers processes including IVD aluminium, vacuum cadmium (PVD), resin-based coatings, titanium anodising, and aviation-grade painting, serving over 100 customers in Germany and internationally. It operates to MIL-SPEC, AMS, and EN standards for mission-critical parts.

Industry: Aerospace & Defence Surface Coating Services
Address: Wismar, Germany
Founded: 1994

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The victim is an EN 9100-certified aerospace and defence contractor processing MIL-SPEC coatings for structurally and mission-critical components; data published by Qilin likely includes sensitive defence supply-chain, technical, and customer data, meeting the threshold for critical given the defence/aerospace sector sensitivity and confirmed data publication.

Qilin claims to have attacked AERO-COATING GmbH and has published data (disclosed status: data_published), indicating exfiltration of company data. No specific ransom amount or data volume was stated in the leak post.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Company operational data
Customer records
Technical/engineering documentation
Certification and compliance records
Potentially MIL-SPEC and defence contract data

What the group claims

N/A

The leak post

captured from the group's site

Law Firms & Legal Services 
[John G Yphantides A Professional Law](http://ijzn3sicrcy7guixkzjkib4ukbiilwc3xhnmby4mcbccnsd7j2rekvqd.onion/site/blog?uuid=1e464ce5-6e74-4e62-be0b-eac503e43af8)
Law Firms & Legal Services 
Law Firms & Legal Services 
[Keller Williams Real Estate - Exton](http://ijzn3sicrcy7guixkzjkib4ukbiilwc3xhnmby4mcbccnsd7j2rekvqd.onion/site/blog?uuid=ac8e3226-6965-4f8e-a2d5-53a0dbce8535)

Sources

Source

Indexed 5 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 Qilin

Qilin is a ransomware group that emerged in October 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations through targeted attacks against organizations across multiple sectors. The group appears to operate independently with limited public information available regarding their specific country of origin or affiliations to other ransomware families. Qilin employs double extortion tactics, typically exfiltrating sensitive data before deploying their encryption payload, though specific details about their initial access vectors and technical tools remain less documented in public security research. The group has demonstrated a broad targeting approach, with their 1645 known victims spanning multiple countries including the United States, France, Canada, United Kingdom, and Germany, with particular focus on manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and business services sectors. Based on available intelligence reporting, Qilin remains an active threat as of recent assessments, continuing their ransomware operations without significant reported law enforcement disruption. The group has been linked to 1,935 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 8, 2022; most recent post June 12, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

January 15, 2026Aero-Coating listed by Qilinon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Qilin

Qilin has been linked to 1,935 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Qilin dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Manufacturing sector, which has 2,458 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Aero-Coating is reported in Germany, a country with 695 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Qilin means Aero-Coating 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 Qilin'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.