Skip to main content
Darkfield

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Northern Response International

listed as northernresponse.com\$17.4M\Canada\366GB\100% DISCLOSED · Claimed by Cactus · listed 1 year ago

17m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedFeb 17, 2025
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Cactus
Status
Data leaked
Country
Canada
Sector
Business Services
Listed on leak site
Feb 17, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Northern Response International is a world leader in direct response, home shopping, and retail product distribution. Operating for over 25 years, the company handles licensing and distribution of infomercials, DRTV spots, and product placement through five sales divisions, serving over 90 countries. Based in Richmond Hill, Toronto, with a US office in New York.

Industry
Direct Response Marketing & Product Distribution
Address
50 Staples Avenue, Richmond Hill, Toronto, Ontario, Canada L4B 0A7

Attack summary

Severity: high — Confirmed exfiltration and complete disclosure of 366 GB of business data from a major international distribution company. Significant operational and commercial damage likely from exposure of client lists, product placement strategies, and internal business records.

Cactus ransomware group claims to have compromised Northern Response International and disclosed 366 GB of data. The disclosure status is marked as 100% disclosed, indicating complete publication of exfiltrated files.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Corporate communications
  • Client information
  • Product distribution records
  • Business operations data
  • Internal company files

Sources

Source

Indexed 1 year 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.

Is this your supplier? Your competitor? You?

Pro plans monitor your domain, corporate emails, and crypto wallets across every new ransomware leak-site post, breach dump and Telegram callout — alerts within 5 minutes.

Disclosure context

About Cactus

**Overview:** Cactus is a ransomware group that emerged in July 2023, primarily motivated by financial gain through double extortion tactics targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group has demonstrated rapid expansion, compromising 552 known victims within its first year of operation. **Origin & Affiliation:** Limited public information exists regarding Cactus's country of origin or specific affiliations with other ransomware groups, though their targeting patterns and operational methods suggest they operate as an independent entity rather than a Ransomware-as-a-Service model. **Attack Methodology:** Cactus ransomware operators employ double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before encrypting victim systems and threatening to leak the information if ransom demands are not met. The group appears to focus on gaining initial access through common vectors such as compromised credentials and vulnerable internet-facing applications, followed by lateral movement and data exfiltration prior to deployment of their encryption payload. **Notable Campaigns:** While specific high-profile incidents have not been extensively documented by major security agencies, the group's victim count of 552 organizations within approximately one year indicates sustained and aggressive targeting campaigns across North America and Europe. Their focus on manufacturing and business services sectors suggests deliberate targeting of organizations likely to pay ransoms due to operational dependencies. **Current Status:** Cactus remains an active ransomware threat as of late 2024, continuing to target organizations primarily in the United States, Canada, and European countries with no reported law enforcement disruptions or confirmed dissolution of their operations. The group has been linked to 552 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 20, 2023; most recent post March 21, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • February 17, 2025northernresponse.com\$17.4M\Canada\366GB\100% DISCLOSED listed by Cactuson the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Cactus

Cactus has been linked to 552 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Cactus dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Business Services sector, which has 3,796 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, northernresponse.com\$17.4M\Canada\366GB\100% DISCLOSED is reported in Canada, a country with 1,055 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Cactus means northernresponse.com\$17.4M\Canada\366GB\100% DISCLOSED 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, CCCS (Canada), as required for your jurisdiction.
  • Monitor for the data appearing on Cactus'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.