Was Kretek International hit by ransomware?

Kretek International was listed by the Royal 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 Royal ransomware group?

Royal 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 Kretek International breach?

Royal published data attributed to Kretek International (~70 GB). Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Kretek International

Claimed by Royal · listed 3 years ago

70 GB

Data size

39m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedApr 7, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Royal
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Retail & Consumer
Listed on leak site: Apr 7, 2023
Data size: 70 GB

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Kretek International, Inc. is a leading importer, marketer, and distributor of specialty tobacco and related products to convenience, mass, and national retailers across the United States. The company operates under the kretek.com domain and distributes well-known brands including Djarum Filtered Cigars, Cuban Rounds, and Clipper accessories. It serves trade customers only and also operates subsidiaries or affiliates including Kretek Canada and Phillips & King.

Industry: Specialty Tobacco Import & Distribution

Attack summary

Severity: high — 70 GB of confirmed exfiltrated data includes PII (employee names and addresses), financial and payment information, and contracts; data has been marked for imminent publication, constituting a significant business and personal data exposure with no encryption-only limitation.

The Royal ransomware group claims to have exfiltrated 70 GB of data from Kretek International and has announced imminent public release of the stolen data. The claimed data includes accounting and finance records, payment information, contracts, and employee personal information.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Accounting records
Finance data
Payment information
Contracts
Employee personal information
Employee addresses
Project information

What the group claims

Kretek International, Inc is a number one importer, marketer, and distributor of specialty tobacco products to convenience, mass, and national retailers in the US. We are going to distribute the data of 70GB size we got from them. We have accounting, finance data, payment information, contracts, personal information (employees' info, addresses etc.), information about their projects and so on.Release coming soon.

Sources

Victim sitekretek.com
Leak posthttp://royal4ezp7xrbakkus3oofjw6gszrohpodmdnfbe5e4w3og5sm7vb3qd.onion/xmwn6zo5qVtxqtmsPW1AfhdBdPHUiPmj

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 Royal

Royal is a financially motivated ransomware group that emerged in November 2022, quickly establishing itself as a significant threat with over 200 documented victims across multiple sectors. The group is believed to operate independently rather than as a ransomware-as-a-service model, though their exact country of origin remains unclear based on publicly available intelligence. Royal primarily gains initial access through phishing campaigns and exploitation of remote desktop protocols, subsequently deploying custom ransomware that encrypts victim files while exfiltrating sensitive data for double extortion tactics. The group has demonstrated a preference for targeting critical infrastructure and public services, with notable attacks against educational institutions, healthcare facilities, and government entities primarily in the United States, though they have also significantly impacted organizations across Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France. Their encryption methodology involves custom-built malware that systematically encrypts files while maintaining persistence on compromised networks. As of recent reporting from federal agencies including CISA and FBI advisories, Royal remains an active threat with ongoing campaigns targeting organizations across their preferred sectors, particularly focusing on entities with limited cybersecurity resources that may be more likely to pay ransom demands. The group has been linked to 211 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 4, 2022; most recent post July 19, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

April 7, 2023Kretek International listed by Royalon the group's public leak site

Data size: 70 GB

Other recent disclosures by Royal

Royal has been linked to 211 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Royal dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Retail & Consumer sector, which has 157 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Kretek International is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Royal means Kretek International 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 Royal'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.