Conti is a financially-motivated ransomware group that emerged in July 2020 and quickly became one of the most prolific and aggressive ransomware operations globally. The group is suspected to be of Russian origin and operated as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model, with documented ties to the TrickBot malware operation and suspected connections to other Russian cybercriminal enterprises. Conti primarily gained initial access through phishing emails, exploitation of vulnerabilities in internet-facing applications, and leveraging the TrickBot and Emotet botnets for distribution, employing double extortion tactics where they exfiltrated sensitive data before deploying their ransomware and threatening to publish stolen information if ransoms were not paid. Notable campaigns included attacks on Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE) in May 2021 which severely disrupted healthcare services nationwide, numerous attacks against U.S. healthcare systems during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the breach of Costa Rica's Ministry of Finance and other government agencies in 2022, with the group demanding a $20 million ransom from the Costa Rican government. The Conti operation was significantly disrupted in 2022 following internal leaks of their communications and source code, leading to the group's dissolution, though many of its members are believed to have migrated to other ransomware operations including Black Basta and Karakurt. The group has been linked to 351 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 31, 2020; most recent post June 7, 2022. The operation is currently inactive.
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.
