Was Pierce Township hit by ransomware?

Pierce Township was listed by the Rhysida 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 Rhysida ransomware group?

Rhysida 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 Pierce Township breach?

Rhysida published data attributed to Pierce Township. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Pierce Township

Claimed by Rhysida · listed 4 days ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 14, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Rhysida
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Government & Defense
Listed on leak site: Aug 14, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Pierce Township is a municipal government entity in southwestern Clermont County, Ohio, established in 1853. It serves over 16,000 residents across 23.5 square miles and provides full-time police, fire, planning, zoning, and community development services. The township operates under a $14+ million annual budget overseen by an elected Board of Trustees and Fiscal Officer.

Industry: Local Government Administration
Address: Southwest corner of Clermont County, Ohio (23.5 square miles)
Founded: 1853

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Confirmed exfiltration of large-scale sensitive government PII (employee SSNs, tax documents, CDL licenses), regulated healthcare records (hospital records), legal settlement documents involving opioid litigation, and comprehensive financial records. Multi-category exposure of government employee and citizen data at scale.

Rhysida claims to have exfiltrated extensive judicial, personnel, legal, and financial records from Pierce Township. The leaked data includes grand jury subpoenas, hospital records, employee PII (SSNs, tax forms, CDL licenses, health insurance documents), legal settlement agreements, financial budgets, and internal email archives. No encryption or operational disruption is mentioned.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Judicial materials (grand jury subpoenas, hospital records from Mercy Hospital)
Public records requests
Fire investigation reports
Employee Social Security Numbers and tax forms (W-4, Ohio Tax)
CDL licenses
Health insurance waivers
New-hire personnel packets
Legal settlements (Logan Creek v. Pierce Township, Purdue opioid settlement)
Easement and lease agreements
Financial records (budgets, tax levies, appropriations, invoices)
Internal email archives of township officials

What the group claims

Pierce Township Pierce Township is a growing community in Ohio that blends rural charm with suburban living, covering 23.5 square miles and home to over 16,000 residents.We are pleased to present:Judicial materials - Grand Jury subpoena response incl. hospital records (Mercy Hospital), public records requests, fire investigation reportsEmployee PII - Social Security numbers (SSA-1945, W-4, Ohio Tax forms), CDL licenses, health insurance waivers, new-hire packetsLegal settlements - Logan Creek v. Pierce Township, Purdue opioid settlement, easement and lease agreementsFinancial records - budgets, tax levies, appropriation reports, invoices, paymentsInternal email archives of township officials and administration More

Sources

Victim sitepiercetownship.org
Leak posthttp://rhysidafohrhyy2aszi7bm32tnjat5xri65fopcxkdfxhi4tidsg7cad.onion/archive.php?company=259

Source

Indexed 4 days 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 Rhysida

Rhysida is a ransomware group that emerged in June 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations through targeted attacks against critical infrastructure and public sector organizations. The group's origin and potential state affiliations remain unclear, though they operate independently rather than as a traditional Ransomware-as-a-Service model, with limited public documentation regarding connections to other cybercriminal organizations. Rhysida employs double extortion tactics, typically gaining initial access through compromised VPN credentials and exploiting vulnerable public-facing applications before deploying their ransomware payload and exfiltrating sensitive data prior to encryption. The group has demonstrated a particular focus on healthcare and educational institutions, with notable attacks documented by CISA and FBI advisories highlighting their targeting of hospitals and school districts across multiple countries, resulting in significant operational disruptions to critical services. As of late 2024, Rhysida remains an active threat with continued operations targeting organizations primarily in the United States, Canada, and other Western nations, maintaining their focus on high-value sectors where operational disruption can maximize ransom payment likelihood. The group has been linked to 287 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 5, 2023; most recent post August 15, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 14, 2026Pierce Township listed by Rhysidaon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Rhysida

Rhysida has been linked to 287 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Rhysida dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Government & Defense sector, which has 5 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Pierce Township is reported in United States, a country with 3,162 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Rhysida means Pierce Township 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 Rhysida'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.