Was Step By Step hit by ransomware?

Step By Step was listed by the Storm 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 Storm ransomware group?

Storm 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 Step By Step breach?

Storm published data attributed to Step By Step. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Step By Step

Claimed by Storm · listed 3 hours ago

Today

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedOct 3, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Storm
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Oct 3, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Step By Step, Inc. is a private nonprofit human services organization headquartered in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, serving more than 2,000 individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities, autism, mental health disorders, and substance use disorders across multiple regions and over a dozen Pennsylvania counties. The organization provides residential programs, vocational and employment support, behavioral health and counseling, autism services, and in-home community support.

Industry: Human Services & Disability Support
Address: 744 Kidder Street, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702, United States
Employees: 1,000–5,000
Founded: 1977

Attack summary

Severity: medium — The victim is a human services nonprofit serving vulnerable populations (individuals with intellectual disabilities, mental health conditions, substance use disorders, autism). Client records would likely include sensitive personal health and support information. However, the leak post provides no proof files, no specifics on data categories exfiltrated, and no operational disruption details, limiting confidence in the threat.

The Storm group claims to have compromised Step By Step, Inc. The leak post does not specify whether data was encrypted, exfiltrated, or both, nor does it detail what data categories are at stake.

medium

What the group claims

Step By Step, Inc. is a private nonprofit human services organization established in 1977 and headquartered in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The organization provides community-based support services to individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities, autism, mental health disorders, and substance use disorders. Its services include residential programs, vocational and employment support, behavioral health and counseling, autism services, in-home and community support, and other individualized programs designed to promote independence and community participation. Step By Step serves more than 2,000 individuals across multiple regions and more than a dozen Pennsylvania counties. The organization works with individuals, families, and community partners to provide personalized support throughout different stages of life. The company headquarters is located in 744 Kidder Street, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702, United States. 1K-5K Employees

Sources

Victim sitestepbystepusa.com
Leak posthttp://yqhecvqtdvq6p7duqcgw2qca77spbgakxcoibtx6zpvfshltsbbbhfqd.onion/company/6abf1c39017ad22f3de0f1e0

Source

Indexed 3 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 Storm

Storm is a ransomware group first observed in August 2026, operating with an apparent financial motivation based on its targeting profile, though limited public documentation exists given its recent emergence and relatively small victim footprint. The group has claimed or been attributed to attacks against at least six known victims, with the United States representing its primary target geography. Storm has demonstrated a preference for targeting the healthcare and manufacturing sectors, alongside a broader category of other industries, suggesting an opportunistic rather than highly specialized targeting philosophy. Due to the group's recent emergence and limited victim count, comprehensive technical details regarding its initial access vectors, encryption methodology, tooling, or affiliation with known threat actor ecosystems have not yet been formally documented by CISA, the FBI, Mandiant, or other major threat intelligence publishers as of the time of this writing. No confirmed RaaS infrastructure, dark web leak site activity, or law enforcement actions against the group have been publicly attributed or reported in open sources. Given its nascent operational timeline beginning in 2026, Storm should be monitored as an emerging threat, particularly within the healthcare sector where ransomware attacks carry significant operational and patient safety implications, but analysts should treat any further characterization beyond the known victim and targeting data with caution pending additional corroborating intelligence. The group has been linked to 81 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on August 7, 2026; most recent post October 3, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

October 3, 2026Step By Step listed by Storm on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Storm

Storm has been linked to 81 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Storm dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 1,087 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Step By Step is reported in United States, a country with 3,167 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Storm means Step By Step 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 Storm'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.