**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.
If your organisation is affected
A listing by Cactus means bestbrands.com\$25.5M\USA\659GB\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.
- 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.
