Was Guardrisk hit by ransomware?

Guardrisk 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 Guardrisk breach?

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

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Guardrisk

Claimed by Thegentlemen · listed 4 hours ago

Today

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedSep 26, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Thegentlemen
Status: Data leaked
Country: South Africa
Sector: Financial Services
Listed on leak site: Sep 26, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Guardrisk is a South African specialist insurance group and market leader in cell captive insurance—a model enabling companies to operate branded insurance businesses under Guardrisk's licensed infrastructure. Headquartered in Sandton, Johannesburg, it operates licensed insurers for life, non-life, and microinsurance with international cells in Mauritius and Gibraltar, and has been wholly owned by Momentum Group (JSE-listed) since 2013–14.

Industry: Specialist Insurance & Cell Captive Solutions
Address: Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa
Employees: 530
Founded: 1993

Attack summary

Severity: low — Post is listing/announcement only with no proof files, no data inventory disclosed, and no operational impact stated. No confirmation of exfiltration or encryption.

The leak post provides no details of the attack method, data exfiltrated, or operational impact. The post only announces disclosure of Guardrisk's presence in the group's victim list without specifying what data was accessed, encrypted, or published.

low

What the group claims

guardrisk.co.za rocketreach.co/guardrisk-insurance-company-ltd-profile_b5a52494f9c62c8e Guardrisk is a South African specialist insurance group, founded in 1993 and widely recognized as the pioneer and market leader of cell captive insurance in Africa — a model that allows companies to run their own "branded" insurance business under Guardrisk's licensed infrastructure instead of building a full insurer themselves. Headquartered in Sandton, Johannesburg, the group operates licensed insurers for life, non-life, and microinsurance, plus international cells in Mauritius and Gibraltar, and employs around 530 people. It has been wholly owned since 2013–14 by Momentum Group (JSE: MTN-listed MTM), which acquired it for R1.6 billion. For the financial year ended 30 June 2025, Guardrisk managed total assets of R68 billion and over 240 active cells, generating net revenue of ~R2 billion and pre-tax trading profit of ~R1 billion

Sources

Victim siteguardrisk.co.za
Leak posthttp://tezwsse5czllksjb7cwp65rvnk4oobmzti2znn42i43bjdfd2prqqkad.onion/#Guardrisk

Source

Indexed 4 hours 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 889 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 9, 2025; most recent post September 26, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: the gentlemen.

Timeline of this disclosure

September 26, 2026Guardrisk listed by thegentlemen on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by thegentlemen

thegentlemen has been linked to 889 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full thegentlemen dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Financial Services sector, which has 1,195 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Guardrisk is reported in South Africa, a country with 27 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by thegentlemen means Guardrisk 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, ECS-CSIRT (South Africa), as required for your jurisdiction.
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.