Was Control & Automation technology - LUX Automation hit by ransomware?

Control & Automation technology - LUX Automation was listed by the Monti 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 Monti ransomware group?

Monti 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 Control & Automation technology - LUX Automation breach?

Monti published data attributed to Control & Automation technology - LUX Automation. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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LUX Automation GmbH

listed as Control & Automation technology - LUX Automation · Claimed by Monti · listed 3 years ago

38m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedMay 3, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Monti
Status: Data leaked
Country: Germany
Sector: Technology
Listed on leak site: May 3, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

LUX Automation GmbH, founded in 2008 as a successor to BEA Elektrotechnik und Automation GmbH (est. 1899), is a 100% subsidiary of SMS group GmbH specialising in integrated automation technology, drive technology, process automation, and industrial plant engineering. The company serves the metals and heavy industry sectors. In 2025, LUX Automation was partly integrated into SMS group's lifecycle services, with its office relocated to the SMS Campus in Mönchengladbach, Germany.

Industry: Industrial Automation & Plant Engineering
Address: SMS Campus, Mönchengladbach, Germany
Founded: 2008

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published (not merely listed), indicating confirmed exfiltration. LUX Automation is a subsidiary of a major industrial group (SMS group GmbH) involved in critical manufacturing infrastructure, and the disclosed data likely includes sensitive business, engineering, and operational information.

The Monti ransomware group claims to have attacked LUX Automation and has reached the data_published stage, indicating exfiltration and publication of stolen data. No specific data volume or ransom demand was stated in the leak post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Automation technology project files
Industrial plant engineering data
Business operational data
Potentially employee/contact information

What the group claims

lux-automation.com For drive, regulation or control technology: LUX Automation is your expert when it comes to automation technology and process automation.

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 Monti

Monti is a ransomware group that emerged in December 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations through targeted encryption attacks against organizations across multiple sectors. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reports, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent ransomware operation rather than a established Ransomware-as-a-Service model. Monti's attack methodology and specific technical details regarding initial access vectors, encryption methods, and data exfiltration practices have not been extensively documented in publicly available threat intelligence from major security firms or government agencies. The group has reportedly compromised approximately 110 victims since their emergence, with their targeting primarily focused on organizations in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, and Italy, showing a particular preference for business services, healthcare, manufacturing, and technology sectors. Limited public documentation exists regarding specific notable campaigns or high-profile attacks attributed to Monti, reflecting the group's relatively recent emergence and lower profile compared to more established ransomware operations. As of current reporting, Monti appears to remain an active threat, though comprehensive intelligence on their current operational status is limited in publicly available sources from major cybersecurity organizations and law enforcement agencies. The group has been linked to 110 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on December 7, 2022; most recent post May 8, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

May 3, 2023Control & Automation technology - LUX Automation listed by Montion the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Monti

Monti has been linked to 110 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Monti dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Technology sector, which has 3,544 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Control & Automation technology - LUX Automation is reported in Germany, a country with 926 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Monti means Control & Automation technology - LUX Automation 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, CERT-Bund (Germany), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Monti'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.