Was Applied Composites hit by ransomware?

Applied Composites was listed by the Storm ransomware operation (United States), 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 Storm ransomware group?

Storm 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 Applied Composites breach?

Storm published data attributed to Applied Composites. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Applied Composites

Claimed by Storm · listed 4 hours ago

Today

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedSep 26, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Storm
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Manufacturing
Listed on leak site: Sep 26, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Applied Composites is a U.S. manufacturer specializing in advanced composite components and assemblies for the aerospace, defense, and space industries. The company offers vertically integrated capabilities including design, tooling, manufacturing, machining, assembly, and testing of composite structures for aircraft, engines, missiles, UAVs, satellites, and launch vehicles.

Industry: Aerospace & Defense Manufacturing – Advanced Composites
Address: 25671 Commercentre Drive, Lake Forest, CA 92630, United States
Employees: 501-1000

Attack summary

Severity: high — Confirmed exfiltration from a defense contractor with aerospace/defense focus; exposure of manufacturing designs and technical data for aircraft, missiles, and space systems poses significant national security and operational risk, even without enumerated proof files shown.

Storm claims to have breached Applied Composites and exfiltrated data. The specific data categories and operational impact are not detailed in the available leak post excerpt.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Manufacturing designs and specifications
Aerospace/defense project documentation
Technical engineering data
Business records

What the group claims

Applied Composites is a leading U.S. manufacturer specializing in advanced composite components, assemblies, engineering, and tooling for the aerospace, defense, and space industries. The company provides highly engineered composite structures for aircraft, engines, missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), satellites, and launch vehicles. Its vertically integrated capabilities include design, tooling, manufacturing, machining, assembly, testing, and engineering support. Applied Composites operates multiple specialized facilities equipped with autoclaves, CNC machining centers, clean rooms, and advanced testing equipment. The company serves major aerospace and defense organizations and focuses on delivering lightweight, durable, high-performance composite solutions for demanding commercial, military, and space applications. The company headquarters is located in 25671 Commercentre Drive, Lake Forest, CA 92630, United States. 501-1000 Employees

Sources

Source

Indexed 4 hours 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 Storm

Storm is a ransomware group first observed in August 2026, operating with an apparent financial motivation based on its targeting profile, though limited public documentation exists given its recent emergence and relatively small victim footprint. The group has claimed or been attributed to attacks against at least six known victims, with the United States representing its primary target geography. Storm has demonstrated a preference for targeting the healthcare and manufacturing sectors, alongside a broader category of other industries, suggesting an opportunistic rather than highly specialized targeting philosophy. Due to the group's recent emergence and limited victim count, comprehensive technical details regarding its initial access vectors, encryption methodology, tooling, or affiliation with known threat actor ecosystems have not yet been formally documented by CISA, the FBI, Mandiant, or other major threat intelligence publishers as of the time of this writing. No confirmed RaaS infrastructure, dark web leak site activity, or law enforcement actions against the group have been publicly attributed or reported in open sources. Given its nascent operational timeline beginning in 2026, Storm should be monitored as an emerging threat, particularly within the healthcare sector where ransomware attacks carry significant operational and patient safety implications, but analysts should treat any further characterization beyond the known victim and targeting data with caution pending additional corroborating intelligence. The group has been linked to 66 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on August 7, 2026; most recent post September 26, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

September 26, 2026Applied Composites listed by Storm on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Storm

Storm has been linked to 66 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Storm dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Manufacturing sector, which has 3,696 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Applied Composites is reported in United States, a country with 3,167 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Storm means Applied Composites 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, CISA (United States), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Storm'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.