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Black Hills Bentonite

Claimed by Nitrogen · listed 9 months ago

8m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedNov 6, 2025
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Nitrogen
Status
Data leaked
Country
United States
Sector
Manufacturing
Listed on leak site
Nov 6, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Black Hills Bentonite LLC is an American company founded in 1947 that mines and processes high-quality Wyoming sodium bentonite for industrial and commercial applications worldwide. The company operates five bentonite processing plants and mining operations throughout Wyoming, supplying materials for uses including drilling, metal casting, environmental and civil engineering, and absorbents. Products are typically delivered by rail to customers globally.

Industry
Bentonite Mining & Processing
Address
55 Salt Creek Highway, Casper, WY 82604
Founded
1947

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Data is listed as published (disclosed status: data_published), indicating confirmed exfiltration, but no specific sensitive regulated data categories (e.g., PII at scale, medical, financial) are identified, and no data volume or detailed inventory is provided in the leak post.

The Nitrogen ransomware group has published data related to Black Hills Bentonite as part of a multi-victim leak post, indicating data has been exfiltrated and disclosed. No ransom amount or specific data volume was stated in the post.

medium

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Company operational data
  • Customer records
  • Business documents

What the group claims

An American company founded in 1947. It mines and processes sodium bentonite, a natural clay used in well drilling, metal casting, and pond and landfill sealing.

The leak post

captured from the group's site
The world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, whose operations are officially divided into four key segments: consumer electronics, cloud and networking products, computing equipment, as well as components and other products. 
PCCA supports the creation of personalized medicine and innovative products, as well as pharmaceutical compounding. 
One of the leaders in video stream optimization, security, and content monetization. Offers advanced solutions for efficient video delivery across all digital ecosystems. 
TThe company operates in the wholesale trade of engineering materials and equipment.. 
The company specializes in the development, engineering, and manufacturing of various components and systems for the automotive industry and other sectors. 
Specializing in instrumental welding (TIG, Micro TIG, MIG), microlaser welding, laser cladding, laser hardening, laser engraving, stress relieving, and mechanical processing. 
Specializing in the production of structural steel and construction. 
A major manufacturer of art materials for professional artists and designers: acrylic paints, oils, watercolors, pastels and other media/materials. 
AvtechTyee is a company operating in…

Sources

Source

Indexed 9 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.

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Disclosure context

About Nitrogen

**Nitrogen** is an emerging ransomware group that first appeared in September 2024, operating with apparent financial motivations through targeted extortion campaigns primarily focused on North American and European organizations. The group has claimed responsibility for attacks against 46 documented victims across multiple sectors, with manufacturing companies representing their most frequent targets. Limited public information suggests the group operates independently rather than as a Ransomware-as-a-Service model, though their specific country of origin and potential affiliations with other cybercriminal organizations remain undetermined by major security research firms. Their attack methodology appears to focus on opportunistic targeting across diverse industries including manufacturing, business services, technology, and hospitality sectors, with the United States serving as their primary area of operations followed by significant activity in Canada, Portugal, India, and France. Due to the group's recent emergence and relatively low profile compared to established ransomware families, detailed technical analysis of their encryption methods, data exfiltration practices, and initial access vectors has not been extensively documented by major threat intelligence providers such as CISA, FBI, or Mandiant. Given the group's recent formation in September 2024, no major high-profile campaigns or significant law enforcement actions have been publicly reported, with their victim portfolio consisting primarily of small to medium-sized enterprises rather than critical infrastructure or Fortune 500 companies. Nitrogen appears to remain active as of current reporting, though their limited operational history and relatively small victim count suggest they are still establishing their presence within the broader ransomware ecosystem. The group has been linked to 57 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 30, 2024; most recent post June 3, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • November 6, 2025Black Hills Bentonite listed by Nitrogenon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Nitrogen

Nitrogen has been linked to 57 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Nitrogen dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Manufacturing sector, which has 3,684 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Black Hills Bentonite is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Nitrogen means Black Hills Bentonite 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 Nitrogen'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.