Was JANUS Research Group hit by ransomware?

JANUS Research Group was listed by the Donutleaks 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 Donutleaks ransomware group?

Donutleaks 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 JANUS Research Group breach?

Donutleaks published data attributed to JANUS Research Group. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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JANUS Research Group

Claimed by Donutleaks · listed 3 years ago

36m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJul 9, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Donutleaks
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Technology
Listed on leak site: Jul 9, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

JANUS Research Group is a US-based technology innovator and engineering and technical services firm founded in 1997, originally focused on virtual training and mission support services. The company has grown to serve defense and government customers, building a reputation for technical excellence, innovation, and cost-schedule performance. It operates as a large business contractor providing engineering, technical, and training support services.

Industry: Defense & Government Technical Services
Employees: 500-1000
Founded: 1997

Attack summary

Severity: critical — JANUS Research Group is a defense and government technical services contractor. Exfiltration and publication of data from a defense-sector contractor likely involves sensitive government, military, or mission-critical information, potentially including regulated or classified-adjacent data, warranting a critical severity rating.

Donutleaks claims to have exfiltrated data from JANUS Research Group and has published the data (disclosed status: data_published). The specific data categories exfiltrated are not enumerated in the post excerpt, but the disclosure indicates data has been released.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Engineering and technical documents
Mission support materials
Internal business records
Potentially government/defense contract data

What the group claims

https://www.janusresearch.com JANUS is a technology innovator and engineering and technical services large business. Founded in 1997 as a virtual training and mission support services company, we have grown over time by forging a reputation for technical excellence, innovation, cost-schedule performance, and customer service. Today, JANUS’ centers of…

Sources

Leak posthttp://sbc2zv2qnz5vubwtx3aobfpkeao6l4igjegm3xx7tk5suqhjkp5jxtqd.onion/janus-research-group/

Source

Indexed 3 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 Donutleaks

Donutleaks is a ransomware group that emerged in August 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations and demonstrating a pattern of targeting critical infrastructure and business sectors across multiple countries. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undocumented in publicly available threat intelligence reports, with limited information available from major security firms or law enforcement agencies regarding their operational structure or potential ransomware-as-a-service model. Based on the limited public documentation available, the group has demonstrated a preference for attacking healthcare, technology, manufacturing, business services, and telecommunications sectors, with their attack methodology and specific technical capabilities not extensively detailed in current threat intelligence reporting. Donutleaks has been associated with approximately 42 documented victims primarily concentrated in the United States, Italy, Iran, and Spain, though specific high-profile campaigns or ransom demands have not been widely reported by major cybersecurity organizations or law enforcement agencies. The current operational status of Donutleaks remains unclear due to limited public threat intelligence coverage of this particular threat actor. The group has been linked to 42 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on August 24, 2022; most recent post July 24, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

July 9, 2023JANUS Research Group listed by Donutleakson the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Donutleaks

Donutleaks has been linked to 42 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Donutleaks dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Technology sector, which has 3,549 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, JANUS Research Group is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Donutleaks means JANUS Research Group 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 Donutleaks'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.