Was Elundini hit by ransomware?

Elundini was listed by the thegentlemen ransomware operation (South Africa), 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 thegentlemen ransomware group?

thegentlemen 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 Elundini breach?

thegentlemen published data attributed to Elundini. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Elundini Local Municipality

listed as Elundini · Claimed by Thegentlemen · listed 3 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedMar 21, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Thegentlemen
Status: Data leaked
Country: South Africa
Listed on leak site: Mar 21, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Elundini Local Municipality (ELM) is a South African local government entity located within the Joe Gqabi District in the north-eastern portion of the Eastern Cape province. It serves communities across Nqanqarhu, Ugie, and Tlokoeng, providing municipal services including infrastructure, community services, budget and treasury, and planning and economic development. The municipality operates under the Eastern Cape provincial framework and is accountable to the Auditor-General.

Industry: Local Government / Municipal Administration
Address: No 1 Sellers Street, Nqanqarhu, 5480, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Attack summary

Severity: high — The victim is a government municipality (public sector), the disclosure status is data_published confirming exfiltration, and the data likely includes sensitive financial, administrative, procurement, and potentially citizen/employee PII. Government entities handling public funds and personal data represent a high-severity target even without confirmed scale of PII.

The ransomware group 'thegentlemen' claims an attack against Elundini Local Municipality with the disclosure status listed as data_published, indicating data has been exfiltrated and published. The specific nature of the data and extent of encryption are not determinable from the truncated leak post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Government municipal records
Supply chain management reports
Budget and treasury documents
Tender and procurement records
Performance agreements
Employee/vacancy records
IDP and SDBIP reports
Council and administration documents
Financial reports (Section 71)

What the group claims

elundini.gov.za zoominfo.com/c/elundini/425741285 Elundini Local Municipality (ELM) is dedicated to nurturing the history and sustainable growth of its communities within the Joe Gqabi District of the Eastern Cape province. The municipality is recognized for its good governance, particularly in AG audits. ELM offers various services aimed at community development, including training interventions in fields such as environment, media, technical skills, and public administration. Its intended clients include local residents, businesses, and organizations seeking to invest and engage in community initiatives

The leak post

captured from the group's site

Gentlecloud Protection 🛡️ Gentlecloud Verifying your browser... Initializing security checks... I'm not a bot

Sources

Victim siteelundini.gov.za
Leak posthttp://tezwsse5czllksjb7cwp65rvnk4oobmzti2znn42i43bjdfd2prqqkad.onion

Source

Indexed 3 months 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 thegentlemen

thegentlemen is a ransomware group that emerged in September 2025, operating with apparent financial motivations based on their broad targeting of commercial sectors. The group has documented 267 victims across multiple countries, with primary focus on the United States, Thailand, France, Brazil, and India. Their targeting strategy demonstrates a preference for high-value sectors including manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and financial services organizations. Given the group's recent emergence and limited public documentation from established threat intelligence sources such as CISA, FBI, or major security research firms, specific details regarding their country of origin, operational structure, attack methodologies, encryption techniques, and whether they employ ransomware-as-a-service models remain unclear. The relatively high victim count of 267 in a short operational timeframe since September 2025 suggests either an aggressive campaign pace or potential inflation of victim numbers through affiliate operations, though without corroborating intelligence reports, the group's exact operational capabilities and notable campaigns cannot be definitively established. Current intelligence indicates the group remains active as of late 2025, though comprehensive threat profiling requires additional validated reporting from authoritative cybersecurity sources. The group has been linked to 483 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 9, 2025; most recent post June 11, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: the gentlemen.

Timeline of this disclosure

March 21, 2026Elundini listed by thegentlemenon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by thegentlemen

thegentlemen has been linked to 483 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full thegentlemen dossier →

Sector and geography

Geographically, Elundini is reported in South Africa, a country with 15 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by thegentlemen means Elundini 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 thegentlemen'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.