Hades is a ransomware group that emerged in December 2020, operating as a financially-motivated cybercriminal organization targeting critical infrastructure sectors. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, though their operational patterns suggest they operate independently rather than as a ransomware-as-a-service model. Limited public documentation exists regarding Hades' specific attack methodology, though like most modern ransomware operators, they likely employ common initial access vectors such as phishing, remote desktop protocol exploitation, or supply chain compromises to gain network access before deploying their encryption payloads. The group has maintained a relatively low profile compared to other ransomware families, with only one publicly documented victim in the transportation systems sector within the United States, suggesting either highly targeted operations or limited operational scope. Current intelligence indicates minimal recent activity from the Hades group, though the lack of extensive public reporting makes it difficult to definitively assess whether the group remains active, has rebranded under a different name, or has ceased operations entirely. The group has been linked to 1 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on December 15, 2020; most recent post May 1, 2021. The operation is currently inactive.
Sector and geography
This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Transportation Systems sector, which has 28 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Forward Air Corp is reported in United States, a country with 7,392 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.
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.
