Was HMW - Press Release hit by ransomware?

HMW - Press Release was listed by the Monti 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 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 HMW - Press Release breach?

Monti published data attributed to HMW - Press Release. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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HMW Special Utility District

listed as HMW - Press Release · Claimed by Monti · listed 3 years ago

30m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedDec 8, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Monti
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Energy & Utilities
Listed on leak site: Dec 8, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

HMW Special Utility District is a Texas water district and special utility district organized under Chapters 49 and 65 of the Texas Water Code. Its primary purpose is to provide water utility services to its service area as permitted by applicable law. It operates as a government-chartered special utility district within the state of Texas.

Industry: Water Utility Services
Address: Texas, United States

Attack summary

Severity: critical — HMW Special Utility District is a public water utility — critical infrastructure. Data has been published (data_published status), indicating confirmed exfiltration. Water utilities handle regulated customer PII and operational data; compromise of such entities represents a critical-severity incident under both infrastructure and data sensitivity dimensions.

The Monti ransomware group claims to have attacked HMW Special Utility District and has published data (disclosed status: data_published), suggesting exfiltration of company data, though specific details on encryption or the volume of data stolen are not stated in the post.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Utility district operational records
Potentially customer/ratepayer data
Internal administrative documents

What the group claims

#Robert_stop_fap_on_kid HMW Special Utility District is a Texas water district and special utility district under Chapters 49 and 65, Texas Water Code. Its purpose is to provide water utility services as permitted by applicable law.

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

December 8, 2023HMW - Press Release 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 Energy & Utilities sector, which has 163 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, HMW - Press Release is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Monti means HMW - Press Release 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 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.