Was Hazel Mercantile hit by ransomware?

Hazel Mercantile was listed by the Kairos ransomware operation (India), 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 Kairos ransomware group?

Kairos 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 Hazel Mercantile breach?

Kairos published data attributed to Hazel Mercantile. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Hazel Mercantile

Claimed by Kairos · listed 7 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedDec 8, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Kairos
Status: Data leaked
Country: India
Listed on leak site: Dec 8, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Hazel Mercantile Limited (HML) is a diversified Indian trading and distribution company with business interests spanning chemicals, petrochemicals, polymers, petroleum, metals, minerals, rubber, and fertilizers. The company provides customized solutions across multiple domains including alternative fuel and energy, infrastructure and logistics, and international trade and distribution. HML operates with a global trade network serving businesses across multiple industries.

Industry: Chemicals, Petrochemicals & Commodity Trading

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published (data_published status) by the threat actor, confirming exfiltration and public release of business data from a multi-sector commodity trading firm. The breadth of business operations and likely sensitive trade, financial, and client data across chemicals, petroleum, and international trade elevates severity to high.

The Kairos ransomware group claims an attack on Hazel Mercantile Limited with the disclosure status marked as data_published, indicating exfiltration and publication of company data. The specific nature of the data published and whether encryption also occurred is not detailed in the leak post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Business trade and distribution records
Chemical and commodity transaction data
Logistics and infrastructure documents
International trade documentation
Client and partner records

What the group claims

Hazel Mercantile Limited (HML) is a multi-faceted organization with diversified business interests in chemicals, petrochemicals, polymers, petroleum, metals, minerals, rubber, and fertilizers. The company offers holistic customized solutions through its various business domains, including alternative fuel and energy, infrastructure and logistics, and international trade and distribution. HML prides itself on its robust systems, swift adaptability, and a strong global network, ensuring quality and expertise in its services. Their intended clients include businesses seeking comprehensive solutions across multiple industries.

Source

Indexed 7 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 Kairos

Kairos is a recently emerged ransomware group first observed in November 2024 that appears to be primarily financially motivated, having targeted approximately 75 victims across multiple sectors and countries. The group's origin and potential affiliations remain unclear due to limited public documentation from established threat intelligence sources, and it is unknown whether they operate as a Ransomware-as-a-Service model or as an independent entity. Based on available targeting data, Kairos appears to focus their operations primarily on English-speaking countries including the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, and Canada, with additional activity observed in Germany, while their sector targeting spans education, healthcare, agriculture and food production, and business services, though specific attack methodologies, initial access vectors, and encryption techniques have not been publicly documented by major security organizations. Given the group's recent emergence in late 2024, there are no widely reported notable campaigns or high-profile incidents documented by CISA, FBI, or established security research firms. As of current reporting, Kairos appears to remain active based on their recent first observation date, though comprehensive threat intelligence profiles from major security organizations have not yet been published due to the group's nascent operational timeline. The group has been linked to 88 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 13, 2024; most recent post June 1, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

December 8, 2025Hazel Mercantile listed by Kairoson the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Kairos

Kairos has been linked to 88 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Kairos dossier →

Sector and geography

Geographically, Hazel Mercantile is reported in India, a country with 381 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Kairos means Hazel Mercantile 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, CERT-In (India), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Kairos'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.