Was Department of Defence South African (DARPA) hit by ransomware?

Department of Defence South African (DARPA) was listed by the Snatch ransomware operation (South Africa), 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 Snatch ransomware group?

Snatch 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 Department of Defence South African (DARPA) breach?

Snatch published data attributed to Department of Defence South African (DARPA). Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Department of Defence – South Africa

listed as Department of Defence South African (DARPA) · Claimed by Snatch · listed 3 years ago

35m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 21, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Snatch
Status: Data leaked
Country: South Africa
Sector: Government
Listed on leak site: Aug 21, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Department of Defence of South Africa (mod.gov.za) is the national government department responsible for the defence and protection of South Africa, operating under the Minister of Defence and Military Veterans. It oversees the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), encompassing the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Military Health Service. As a sovereign defence institution it manages military operations, procurement, and classified national security matters.

Industry: National Defence & Military Affairs
Address: Armscor Building, 370 Nossob Street, Erasmuskloof, Pretoria, 0048, South Africa
Founded: 1994

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The victim is a national government defence department; the claimed exfiltrated data includes military contracts and internal call signs (operationally sensitive classified material) as well as personal data of likely military personnel — all categories representing a severe national security and PII breach at the highest level of sensitivity.

The Snatch ransomware group claims to have exfiltrated data from the South African Department of Defence, asserting possession of military contracts, internal call signs, and personal data, with the disclosure status indicating the data has been published.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Military contracts
Internal call signs
Personal data of personnel

What the group claims

Military contracts, internal call signs and personal data

Sources

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 Snatch

Snatch is a ransomware group that emerged in November 2021, operating with primarily financial motivations and targeting organizations across multiple sectors including business services, government, education, manufacturing, and healthcare. The group has compromised at least 142 known victims, with their attacks concentrated primarily in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, and France. Little is publicly documented about Snatch's specific country of origin or affiliations with other cybercriminal organizations, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent ransomware operation. The group's attack methodology and specific technical details regarding initial access vectors, encryption methods, and data exfiltration practices have not been extensively documented in public threat intelligence reports from major security firms or government agencies. While Snatch has maintained a notable victim count across diverse geographic regions and industry sectors, there are no widely reported major campaigns or high-profile attacks that have drawn significant public attention or law enforcement action. Based on available public information, Snatch appears to remain an active ransomware operation as of recent reporting periods, though comprehensive details about their current operational status and recent activities are limited in open-source intelligence. The group has been linked to 142 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 29, 2021; most recent post May 16, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 21, 2023Department of Defence South African (DARPA) listed by Snatchon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Snatch

Snatch has been linked to 142 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Snatch 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, Department of Defence South African (DARPA) is reported in South Africa, a country with 52 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Snatch means Department of Defence South African (DARPA) 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, ECS-CSIRT (South Africa), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Snatch'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.