Disclosure context

About benzona

Benzona is an emerging ransomware group that was first observed in November 2025, operating with apparent financial motivations based on their targeting patterns across multiple sectors and geographic regions. The group has conducted at least 14 documented attacks within a short timeframe since their emergence, suggesting an active operational tempo. Given the limited public documentation available from major threat intelligence sources, specific details regarding the group's country of origin, potential affiliations, or operational model remain unclear, though their diverse geographic targeting spanning Romania, India, Côte d'Ivoire, Taiwan, and France suggests either a broad operational scope or potential ransomware-as-a-service model. The group's attack methodology and technical capabilities have not been extensively documented in public threat intelligence reporting, though their targeting of healthcare, manufacturing, hospitality and tourism, and technology sectors indicates they may be opportunistic in their victim selection rather than following highly specialized targeting criteria. No major high-profile campaigns or significant law enforcement actions against Benzona have been publicly reported by CISA, FBI, or major security firms, likely due to the group's recent emergence and relatively limited scale of operations compared to established ransomware families. Given the group's recent first observation date of November 2025, Benzona appears to remain active, though comprehensive threat intelligence profiles from established security researchers have not yet been published due to the group's nascent operational history. The group has been linked to 14 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 26, 2025; most recent post January 30, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

November 26, 2025mazda-ploiesti.ro listed by benzonaon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Manufacturing sector, which has 2,458 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, mazda-ploiesti.ro is reported in RO, a country with 10 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

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.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Mazda Ploiești

listed as mazda-ploiesti.ro · Claimed by benzona · listed 6 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Nov 26, 2025
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: benzona
Status: Data leaked
Country: RO
Sector: Manufacturing
Listed on leak site: Nov 26, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Mazda Ploiești (mazda-ploiesti.ro) is an automotive dealership based in Ploiești, Romania, operating as a Mazda brand sales and/or service outlet. The company serves the local and regional market in the Prahova County area of Romania.

Industry: Automotive Dealership & Sales
Address: Ploiești, Romania

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Data is marked as published, indicating exfiltration and public disclosure occurred, but no details on data volume, type, or sensitivity are available from the truncated/AI-generated post, preventing a higher severity classification.

The group 'benzona' has claimed an attack against Mazda Ploiești with a disclosed status of data_published, suggesting data has been exfiltrated and published. No specific details on the nature of the data or the attack vector are available from the leak post.

medium

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

N/A

Sources

Victim sitemazda-ploiesti.ro

Source

Indexed 6 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.