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Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi

listed as Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi - Download link · Claimed by Everest · listed 1 year ago

12m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedJul 12, 2025
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Everest
Status
Data leaked
Country
UAE
Sector
Public Sector
Listed on leak site
Jul 12, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi is a government entity responsible for transforming Abu Dhabi into a global cultural hub. It manages cultural heritage preservation, museum operations, international tourism promotion, and Emirati cultural initiatives.

Industry
Public Sector - Culture & Tourism

Attack summary

Severity: high — Confirmed exfiltration from a UAE government entity (public sector) represents significant operational and strategic sensitivity. Government data breaches carry inherent criticality despite lack of detail on specific data types.

Everest claims to have exfiltrated data from the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi. The specific scope of data accessed and operational impact are not detailed in the available post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • government records
  • cultural heritage data
  • tourism operations information

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

The Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) enables the transformation of the emirate into a global cultural hub. It enhances Abu Dhabi's global image through its rich cultural and historical heritage by stimulating tourism. It organizes events, establishes museums, preserves local heritage, and promotes the Emirati culture internationally.

Sources

Source

Indexed 1 year 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 Everest

Everest is a financially-motivated ransomware group that emerged in September 2021, operating with a focus on profit-driven extortion campaigns against organizations primarily in the United States and Europe. The group's country of origin and specific affiliations remain undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, though their operational patterns suggest they likely operate as an independent entity rather than a formal ransomware-as-a-service model. Limited public documentation exists regarding Everest's specific attack methodologies, initial access vectors, or technical capabilities, though their victim profile indicates they employ standard ransomware tactics targeting a diverse range of sectors including healthcare, technology, business services, and manufacturing organizations. Since their emergence, Everest has claimed responsibility for attacks against 339 victims across multiple countries, with the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and Spain representing their primary geographic targets, though no specific high-profile incidents or major ransoms have been publicly documented by law enforcement or major security firms. As of current reporting, Everest appears to remain an active threat actor, though the limited public intelligence available suggests they operate as a lower-tier ransomware group compared to more prominent and well-documented criminal organizations. The group has been linked to 369 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 9, 2021; most recent post May 29, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • July 12, 2025Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi - Download link listed by Evereston the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Everest

Everest has been linked to 369 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Everest dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Public Sector sector, which has 466 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi - Download link is reported in UAE, a country with 81 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Everest means Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi - Download link 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.
  • Monitor for the data appearing on Everest'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.