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Cell C

Claimed by Ransomhouse · listed 2 years ago

743 GB
Data size
$740
Ransom
demanded
18m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedDec 28, 2024
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Ransomhouse
Status
Data leaked
Country
South Africa
Sector
Business Services
Listed on leak site
Dec 28, 2024
Data size
743 GB
Ransom demanded
$740

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Cell C is a South African mobile telecommunications operator providing cellphone contracts, prepaid plans, data services, and fibre-to-the-home (C-Fibre/FTTH) internet connectivity. The company operates retail stores, online shopping, and customer management services across South Africa.

Industry
Telecommunications & Mobile Services
Address
South Africa

Attack summary

Severity: high — Cell C is a major telecommunications operator in South Africa with hundreds of thousands of customer accounts. Encryption of operational systems disrupts critical telecommunications infrastructure and likely affects customer service delivery. While specific exfiltrated data is not detailed in the leak post, the scale and sensitivity of telecoms customer data (accounts, billing, identity information) combined with operational impact warrants high severity.

Ransomware group claims to have encrypted Cell C's systems. The leak post does not specify what data was exfiltrated, only that encryption occurred on the victim's infrastructure.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • customer account information
  • billing records
  • contract data
  • device information

What the group claims

Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Midrand, South Africa, Cell C is a provider of mobile telecommunications services to customers throughout South Africa. The company offers voice, data, and messaging services.

The leak post

captured from the group's site
```
{"data":[{"id":"a1894b76b7004c75a3a0845799af49956592e3d9","display":"animated","header":"HOT NEWS","info":" Trellix is a global cybersecurity company.","url":"","sort":1,"views":"436242"},{"id":"336b257f582b17573c97578efd4b22762bf77344","sort":2,"header":"Trellix (McAfee & FireEye)","url":"https://www.trellix.com/","private":"false","revenue":"1.5-2 B$","employees":"5000","info":"Trellix is a global cybersecurity company formed from the October 2021 merger of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye. It provides services to over 50,000 business and government customers worldwide, protecting more than 200 million endpoints. The companys open and native extended detection and response (XDR) platform helps organizations confronted by todays most advanced threats gain confidence in the protection and resilience of their operations. Trellix, along with an extensive partner ecosystem, accelerates technology innovation through machine learning and automation to empower over 40,000 business and government customers with living security","statusDate":"DEPENDS ON YOU","status":"EVIDENCE","published":"NOT YET","action":"Encrypted","actionDate":"17/04/2026","volume":"~","content":"cybersecurity.html"…

Sources

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 Ransomhouse

Ransomhouse is a ransomware group that emerged in June 2021, operating primarily for financial gain through extortion campaigns targeting organizations across multiple sectors globally. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain unclear based on publicly available intelligence, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent cybercriminal organization rather than a traditional ransomware-as-a-service model. Ransomhouse employs double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before deploying their ransomware payload and threatening to publish the information on their leak site if victims refuse to pay the demanded ransom. The group has demonstrated a broad targeting approach, with documented attacks against 187 victims primarily concentrated in the United States, China, United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain, focusing heavily on healthcare, technology, business services, and manufacturing sectors. While specific high-profile campaigns have not been extensively documented by major security firms, the group's consistent victim count and geographic distribution indicate sustained operational capability since their emergence. As of current reporting, Ransomhouse remains active with no known major law enforcement disruptions or confirmed rebranding efforts. The group has been linked to 210 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 1, 2021; most recent post June 29, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: RANSOM HOUSE.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • December 28, 2024Cell C listed by Ransomhouseon the group's public leak site
Data size
743 GB
Ransom demanded
$740

Other recent disclosures by Ransomhouse

Ransomhouse has been linked to 210 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Ransomhouse dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Business Services sector, which has 3,796 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Cell C is reported in South Africa, a country with 52 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Ransomhouse means Cell C 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, ECS-CSIRT (South Africa), as required for your jurisdiction.
  • Monitor for the data appearing on Ransomhouse'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.