Was Sterling Solutions hit by ransomware?

Sterling Solutions was listed by the Blackbyte 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 Blackbyte ransomware group?

Blackbyte 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 Sterling Solutions breach?

Blackbyte published data attributed to Sterling Solutions. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Sterling Solutions

Claimed by Blackbyte · listed 3 years ago

38m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedMay 12, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Blackbyte
Status: Data leaked
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Media & Entertainment
Listed on leak site: May 12, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Sterling Solutions is a full-service creative and production agency based in the United Kingdom, operating for approximately 25 years. The company provides integrated brand, marketing, and communications solutions entirely in-house, including point-of-sale, packaging, and digital platforms. It serves clients seeking end-to-end creative and production services under one roof.

Industry: Creative & Marketing Production Agency

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been confirmed as published by the ransomware group, indicating successful exfiltration of business data. While no regulated personal data at scale is explicitly confirmed, the publication of data from a creative agency with client relationships represents a significant business data exposure warranting a high severity rating.

BlackByte claims to have compromised Sterling Solutions and has published data (disclosed status: data_published), indicating exfiltration of company data. The specific data categories and volume have not been detailed in the leak post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Client brand and marketing materials
Internal business communications
Company operational data

What the group claims

We are Sterling, a full service creative and production agency, who think about things a little differently.We have 25 years of experience creating complete and compelling communications, brand and marketing solutions from under one roof. By offering each touch-point of excellence in-house, as part of a truly integrated creative and production service, we can offer not only quality and value, but also speed, innovation and cost savings that most other providers can’t.So, whatever you need, even if you’re not sure what that is, we’re here to help.We help bring our clients’ brands, visions and aspirations to life.

Sources

Victim sitesterlingsolutions.co.uk/

Source

Indexed 3 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 Blackbyte

BlackByte is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation that emerged in October 2021, primarily motivated by financial gain through double extortion tactics targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group is suspected to operate from Russia or former Soviet states based on their use of Russian-language forums and avoidance of targeting organizations in Commonwealth of Independent States countries, though they maintain no confirmed links to other established ransomware families. BlackByte operators typically gain initial access through vulnerable Microsoft Exchange servers, phishing campaigns, and exploitation of remote desktop protocol (RDP) services, employing tools such as Cobalt Strike for lateral movement and data exfiltration before deploying their custom ransomware payload that uses AES-256 encryption with RSA-2048 key protection. The group has demonstrated particular focus on critical infrastructure sectors, with the FBI and CISA issuing joint advisories in February 2022 highlighting attacks against organizations in government, healthcare, manufacturing, and education sectors, including notable incidents affecting San Francisco's transportation authority and multiple healthcare systems across the United States. BlackByte remains active as of 2024, continuing to evolve their tactics and maintain their leak site for publishing stolen data from victims who refuse to pay ransoms. The group has been linked to 147 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 4, 2021; most recent post July 30, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

May 12, 2023Sterling Solutions listed by Blackbyteon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Blackbyte

Blackbyte has been linked to 147 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Blackbyte dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Media & Entertainment sector, which has 97 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Sterling Solutions is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 1,217 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Blackbyte means Sterling Solutions 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 Blackbyte'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.