Was CityDfDefiance(Disclosure of all) hit by ransomware?

CityDfDefiance(Disclosure of all) was listed by the Knight 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 Knight ransomware group?

Knight 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 CityDfDefiance(Disclosure of all) breach?

Knight published data attributed to CityDfDefiance(Disclosure of all) (~387 GB). Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

City of Defiance

listed as CityDfDefiance(Disclosure of all) · Claimed by Knight · listed 2 years ago

387 GB

Data size

29m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedFeb 1, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Knight
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Government
Listed on leak site: Feb 1, 2024
Data size: 387 GB

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

City of Defiance is a municipal government entity serving as the county seat of Defiance County in northwestern Ohio, located approximately 55 miles southwest of Toledo. With a population of 17,066 as of the 2020 census, it provides local administrative, law enforcement, and public services to the community.

Industry: Local Government
Address: 631 Perry Street, Defiance, Ohio 43512

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Confirmed exfiltration of 387 GB from a government entity including classified law enforcement documents, operational records, and employee personal data at scale. Disclosure of law enforcement sensitive information poses direct risk to public safety and national security.

Knight claims to have exfiltrated approximately 387 GB of data from the City of Defiance's internal network after the victim's lack of cooperation. The breach includes law enforcement documents, videos (some claimed to be classified), employee files, email communications, and various confidential contracts.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

law enforcement documents
law enforcement videos
classified documents
employee files
email communications
contracts

The group's post references roughly 50 MB sample files published proof files.

What the group claims

Because of their lack of cooperation, we had to release all the data, which included law enforcement documents and law enforcement videos, including some of their classified documents, which looked very interesting.The latest data compression pack is All.rar(387Gb)We have obtained more than 390Gb files on their internal network, which contain employee files,law enforcement video,mail and various confidential documents such as contracts.It seems that they don't care about the privacy of their employees and law enforcement. Let's publish part of the data first.FIRST:http://uzfrntnmwojla5v4w3xvpxerjg43kuzqxmtspqhi5qclwtof5ibgonyd.onion/cityofdefiance/part1.rarWe will release it one after anothercityofdefiance.comDefiance,OhioCity in and the county seat of Defiance County, Ohio, United States • Defiance is a city in and the county seat of Defiance County, Ohio, United States, about 55 miles southwest of Toledo and 47 miles northeast of Fort Wayne, Indiana, in Ohio's northwestern corner. The population was 17,066 at the 2020 censusCity of Defiance631 Perry Street Defiance, Ohio 43512Phone: 419-784-2101https://www.facebook.com/cityofdefiance/50MB sample files:https://gofile.io/d/5lGY2F

Sources

Leak posthttp://knight3xppu263m7g4ag3xlit2qxpryjwueobh7vjdc3zrscqlfu3pqd.onion/e30b03ef-35d0-414c-b00f-e6a220af9482/

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 Knight

Knight is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in September 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations and demonstrating a focus on targeting critical infrastructure and high-value sectors. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reports, though their operational patterns suggest they operate as an independent entity rather than a established ransomware-as-a-service model. With 48 known victims since their emergence, Knight has shown a preference for targeting organizations across the United States, Brazil, Italy, Spain, and Germany, with particular focus on healthcare, manufacturing, media, and government sectors. Their attack methodology and specific technical capabilities have not been extensively documented by major security firms, though their targeting of healthcare and government entities suggests they employ effective initial access techniques and likely utilize double extortion tactics common among contemporary ransomware groups. While specific notable campaigns have not been widely publicized by CISA, FBI, or major security researchers, the group's consistent activity across multiple countries and high-value sectors indicates sustained operational capability. Knight appears to remain active as of current reporting, though detailed technical analysis and specific law enforcement actions against the group have not been publicly documented by authoritative sources. The group has been linked to 48 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 6, 2023; most recent post February 12, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

February 1, 2024CityDfDefiance(Disclosure of all) listed by Knighton the group's public leak site

Data size: 387 GB

Other recent disclosures by Knight

Knight has been linked to 48 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Knight dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Government sector, which has 685 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, CityDfDefiance(Disclosure of all) is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Knight means CityDfDefiance(Disclosure of all) 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 Knight'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.