Was Findel hit by ransomware?

Findel was listed by the Cicada3301 ransomware operation (United Kingdom), 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 Cicada3301 ransomware group?

Cicada3301 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 Findel breach?

Cicada3301 published data attributed to Findel. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Findel

Claimed by Cicada3301 · listed 2 years ago

23m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 21, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Cicada3301
Status: Data leaked
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Business Services
Listed on leak site: Aug 21, 2024

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Findel is a UK-based eCommerce supplier of educational resources serving schools and nurseries across the UK and 130+ countries. Operating multiple specialist brands (Hope, GLS, Davies Sports, Philip Harris, Spa4Schools, A-Z, LDA), the company offers over 32,000 products and was acquired by the Manutan Group in April 2024.

Industry: Educational Resources & Equipment Distribution
Address: Hyde, Cheshire, United Kingdom (with offices in Nottingham)
Employees: 300
Founded: 1817

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Data exfiltration claimed but no proof of data published yet; no specific sensitive data type confirmed; threat-based disclosure with no operational disruption stated. Medium reflects the confirmed breach claim without evidence of high-sensitivity PII or critical data at scale.

Cicada3301 claims to have exfiltrated data from Findel and threatens publication if the company does not pay ransom. No specific data types or proof files are detailed in the post.

medium

What the group claims

Findel is an eCommerce educational resources supplier in the UK and international schools and nurseries marketplace. We own several general and specialist brands including Hope, GLS, Davies Sports, Philip Harris, Spa4Schools, A-Z and LDA. These brands give us full coverage in all product areas for primary, secondary and early years teaching, as well as specialist resources supply for school business managers, science teaching, PE and sports equipment. Findel’s origins can be traced right back to 1817. Today, our brands and websites offer more than 32,000 products to customers in the UK and overseas, with the business exporting to over 130 countries. Headquartered in Hyde, Cheshire, we have distribution centre and offices in Nottingham and employ around 300 people. Findel was acquired from Studio Retail PLC in April 2021 by Endless LLP, and most recently, in April 2024, Findel was acquired by the Manutan Group, a major European B2B player specialising in the distribution of equipment and supplies for businesses and local authorities. If companies do not contact us, the data will be published!

Sources

Victim sitefindel.co.uk
Leak posthttp://cicadabv7vicyvgz5khl7v2x5yygcgow7ryy6yppwmxii4eoobdaztqd.onion/745m38llhs0h9l48t4yak4wurpsfoy0z

Source

Indexed 2 years 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 Cicada3301

Cicada3301 is a recently emerged ransomware group that began operations in June 2024, primarily motivated by financial gain through extortion activities targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group's origin and affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, with limited information available regarding their operational structure or potential connections to other cybercriminal organizations. Based on observed targeting patterns, Cicada3301 has demonstrated a preference for attacking business services, technology, manufacturing, and financial sector organizations, with their operations concentrated primarily in English-speaking countries including the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, as well as extending to Spain and Singapore. The group has successfully compromised approximately 75 known victims since their emergence, though specific details regarding their attack methodologies, initial access vectors, encryption techniques, and extortion tactics have not been extensively documented in publicly available threat intelligence reports from major cybersecurity firms or government agencies. Given the limited public documentation available from CISA, FBI, Mandiant, or other reputable security researchers, the group's current operational status, technical capabilities, and specific attack infrastructure remain largely uncharacterized in open-source intelligence reporting. As of the most recent observations, Cicada3301 appears to remain active in conducting ransomware operations, though comprehensive analysis of their tactics, techniques, and procedures awaits more detailed public reporting from established threat intelligence sources. The group has been linked to 75 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 20, 2024; most recent post September 4, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 21, 2024Findel listed by Cicada3301on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Cicada3301

Cicada3301 has been linked to 75 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Cicada3301 dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Business Services sector, which has 3,796 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Findel is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 1,217 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Cicada3301 means Findel 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, NCSC (United Kingdom), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Cicada3301'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.