Disclosure context

About Abyss

Abyss is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in March 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations and targeting organizations across multiple sectors with a focus on English-speaking countries. The group's origin and affiliations remain largely undocumented by major security agencies, though their targeting patterns suggest they operate independently rather than as a Ransomware-as-a-Service model. Their attack methodology and specific tools have not been extensively documented by major threat intelligence firms, though their victim profile of 87 organizations indicates they employ effective initial access techniques to compromise business services, technology, healthcare, and agriculture sectors. The group demonstrates a clear geographic preference for targets in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, and Hong Kong, suggesting either language preferences or specific regional access capabilities. Due to the group's recent emergence and relatively limited public documentation from established security researchers, detailed information about notable campaigns, encryption methods, or law enforcement actions remains scarce. Abyss appears to remain active as of current reporting, though the lack of extensive public analysis by major threat intelligence organizations suggests they may operate at a smaller scale compared to more prominent ransomware families. The group has been linked to 98 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on March 21, 2023; most recent post May 18, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

March 28, 2026Optimum Design listed by Abysson the group's public leak site

Data size: 795GB
Ransom demanded: $50

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Electronics/Engineering sector. Geographically, Optimum Design is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 902 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

Optimum Design Associates

listed as Optimum Design · Claimed by Abyss · listed 2 months ago

795GB

Data size

$50

Ransom

demanded

53d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Mar 28, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Abyss
Status: Data leaked
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Electronics/Engineering
Listed on leak site: Mar 28, 2026
Data size: 795GB
Ransom demanded: $50

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Optimum Design Associates (an Emerald Technologies Company) is a UK-based provider of PCB design services and electronic engineering. The company offers professional PCB layout, design, and related engineering services to clients across the electronics sector. It operates under the Emerald Technologies group umbrella.

Industry: PCB Design & Electronic Engineering Services

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been confirmed as published (disclosed status: data_published) with 795 GB of exfiltrated business data including likely proprietary engineering and design files; significant exfiltration at scale from an engineering firm.

The Abyss ransomware group claims to have exfiltrated 795 GB of uncompressed data from Optimum Design Associates and has published the data, providing download links on their leak site.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Company files (795 GB uncompressed)
Engineering/PCB design data (inferred from industry)
Business documents

What the group claims

PCB design services data, electronic engineering solutions, customer data including Amazon, Siemens, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin

The leak post

captured from the group's site

```
let data = [
{
        'title' : 'thinlinetech.com',
        'short' : 'thinlinetech.com 29Gb uncompressed data',
        'full' : 'Thinline Technologies <br>' +
                 'Thinline Technologies offers reliable IT consulting and expert computer and network support services to businesses in the Baltimore metro area.<br> They specialize in network administration, technology planning, and help desk services, focusing on increasing productivity and profitability for small to mid-size businesses.<br>'+
            'password: 6oGfyIRISQmmI3Ge2kEeyu7hbzONONEFpkcnhC1S4Ygk4iSpw4RRxDXY1uk9xeyUXOmg7UOuZvGekRc9cs8E61LWKdI08uv0kUyC4V6YxaETtrhniAtKD9t7FQ2qTFYi<br>'+
            'Link â„–1 Filelist',
        'links' : [
            "http://zngbsq66uwem4qzyxpqb5rjo2xebnbwdku27nhmquryx6ljnbbedhiad.onion/thinline.lst.zip",
            "http://zngbsq66uwem4qzyxpqb5rjo2xebnbwdku27nhmquryx6ljnbbedhiad.onion/thinline.rar"
        ]
},
{
        'title' : 'sitoy.com',
        'short' : 'sitoy.com 1.7Tb uncompressed data',
        'full' : 'Sitoy Group <br>' +
                 'Founded in 1968, Sitoy Group is engaged in the design, research, development, manufacturing, sale, wholesaling, and re…

Data the group says was taken

engineering_data
customer_data
business_data

Screenshot of the leak post

Sources

Victim siteoptimumdesign.com
Leak posthttp://3ev4metjirohtdpshsqlkrqcmxq6zu3d7obrdhglpy5jpbr7whmlfgqd.onion/static/data.js

Source

Indexed 2 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.

Disclosure context

About Abyss

Timeline of this disclosure

Other recent disclosures by Abyss

Sector and geography

Status timeline

At a glance

About the victim

Attack summary

Data the group says was taken

What the group claims

The leak post

Data the group says was taken

Screenshot of the leak post

Sources

Source