Was howardcpas.com hit by ransomware?

howardcpas.com was listed by the Eldorado 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 Eldorado ransomware group?

Eldorado 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 howardcpas.com breach?

Eldorado published data attributed to howardcpas.com. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Howard, Howard and Hodges

listed as howardcpas.com · Claimed by Eldorado · listed 2 years ago

21m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedOct 1, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Eldorado
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Financial
Listed on leak site: Oct 1, 2024

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Howard, Howard and Hodges is a full-service CPA and accounting firm based in Lake Mary, Florida, with over 60 years of operating experience serving small businesses. They offer accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, tax planning and preparation, and business consulting services, with specialized expertise in healthcare, food service, construction, non-profit, automotive, retail, and e-commerce sectors.

Industry: Accounting & CPA Services
Address: Lake Mary, FL 32746
Founded: 1961

Attack summary

Severity: low — No proof files, screenshots, or data samples are referenced in the post. No operational impact is stated. The post is purely descriptive of the company without substantive claims of data compromise or evidence of breach.

The Eldorado ransomware group claims to have attacked Howard, Howard and Hodges. The leak post does not specify whether data was exfiltrated, encrypted, or both, nor does it detail what specific data is at stake.

low

What the group claims

Howard CPAs is a professional accounting firm offering comprehensive financial services including tax planning, auditing, consulting, and bookkeeping. Their team of experienced CPAs focuses on personalized solutions to meet the unique needs of individuals and businesses. Known for their commitment to accuracy and client service, they aim to help clients achieve financial success and compliance.

Sources

Victim sitehowardcpas.com

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 Eldorado

Eldorado is a recently emerged ransomware group first observed in June 2024, operating with apparent financial motivations and demonstrating a relatively broad targeting approach across multiple countries and industry sectors. The group's origin and affiliations remain largely undocumented in public threat intelligence reporting, with no confirmed links to state actors or established ransomware families, though their operational patterns suggest they likely operate as an independent entity rather than a formal RaaS model. Specific technical details regarding Eldorado's initial access vectors, encryption methods, and data exfiltration capabilities have not been extensively documented in public security research, though their targeting of over 112 victims across diverse sectors including business services, technology, manufacturing, and financial services suggests they employ opportunistic attack methodologies rather than highly specialized techniques. The group has demonstrated a geographic focus primarily on the United States and Canada, with additional activity observed in Italy, UAE, and Croatia, though no specific high-profile campaigns or major ransomware incidents have been publicly attributed to this group by federal agencies or major security firms. As of current reporting, Eldorado appears to remain active with no documented law enforcement disruptions or confirmed rebranding activities, though the limited public visibility of their operations suggests they may be a smaller-scale operation compared to established ransomware families. The group has been linked to 112 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 6, 2024; most recent post January 22, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: el dorado.

Timeline of this disclosure

October 1, 2024howardcpas.com listed by Eldoradoon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Eldorado

Eldorado has been linked to 112 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Eldorado dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Financial sector, which has 426 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, howardcpas.com is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Eldorado means howardcpas.com 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 Eldorado'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.