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Khoemacau Copper Mining

Claimed by Avoslocker · listed 4 years ago

$565M
Ransom
demanded
43m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedDec 26, 2022
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Avoslocker
Status
Data leaked
Country
Botswana
Sector
Energy & Utilities
Listed on leak site
Dec 26, 2022
Ransom demanded
$565M

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Khoemacau Copper Mining is a subsidiary of Cupric Canyon Capital, an American private equity firm, operating an underground copper mine development project in Botswana. The Khoemacau copper project is a high-grade underground mine and represents one of the significant copper developments in southern Africa. In February 2019, the company secured a $565 million project funding package for the mine's development.

Industry
Copper Mining & Metals Extraction
Address
Botswana

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Full Active Directory domain hash dump has been publicly leaked, exposing NTLM credentials for all domain accounts including service accounts. This enables lateral movement, credential cracking, and full domain compromise; constitutes confirmed exfiltration of sensitive infrastructure authentication data from a critical mining operation. Disclosure status is 'data_published', meaning the data is already publicly available.

AvosLocker claims to have exfiltrated and published all Active Directory domain password hashes from Khoemacau Copper Mining's internal domain (kcm.local), including hashes for named user accounts and service accounts such as FortiEMS-svc. The leak post presents NTLM hash credentials for multiple employees as proof of access.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Active Directory domain NTLM password hashes
  • Employee account credentials
  • Service account credentials (FortiEMS-svc)
  • Internal domain user directory (kcm.local)

The group's post references roughly 10 proof files.

What the group claims

ALL Active Directory domain hashes leaked!!! Format: kcm.local\tshiamo.molefe:::13506d75610047a00e0b7692e81f70b2::: kcm.local\mpho.losike:::923a3103e0e13ab8014c9a8354c6337f::: kcm.local\roy.basson:::27f0e2227d44e6b2ac122c25350efd4c::: kcm.local\marius.ungerer:::ba1a5281df2eba76948e8c68aaa9211c::: kcm.local\helga.hugo:::c67c2209034b9537cc07083d842e9f65::: kcm.local\FortiEMS-svc:::975020171cada4be8e8fb655fcf49e4f::: kcm.local\tobokani.mosetlha:::0f9437d2c04e53cf4930a1b7cd50659a::: kcm.local\nikiwe.mahlasela:::83bcee313b6b3bb5d5cd1434128c92e6::: kcm.local\mooketsi.rantape:::e9923a513a6ee1fb4e08251da13993b2::: kcm.local\kuairani.hengari:::3ff04097c34204839ec416b3c1399b8b::: The Khoemacau copper project is an underground mine being developed by American private equity firm Cupric Canyon Capital's subsidiary Khoemacau Copper Mining in Botswana. Khoemacau Copper signed a $565m project funding package deal with Cupric Canyon Capital for the development of the high-grade Khoemacau copper project in February 2019.

Source

Indexed 4 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 Avoslocker

**Overview**: AvosLocker is a financially motivated ransomware group that emerged in June 2021, operating as both a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform and conducting direct attacks against organizations worldwide. The group has demonstrated sophisticated capabilities and has targeted over 70 victims across multiple critical sectors. **Origin & Affiliation**: While the exact country of origin remains unclear, AvosLocker operates as a RaaS model, recruiting affiliates to conduct attacks using their ransomware payload and infrastructure. The group has shown no clear ties to state-sponsored activities, appearing to be purely profit-driven cybercriminals. **Attack Methodology**: AvosLocker typically gains initial access through compromised Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials, VPN vulnerabilities, and phishing campaigns, subsequently deploying tools like Cobalt Strike for lateral movement and persistence. The group employs double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before encrypting systems and threatening to publish the information on their leak site if ransom demands are not met. Their ransomware uses strong encryption algorithms and includes capabilities to terminate security processes and delete shadow copies to prevent recovery. **Notable Campaigns**: The group has particularly targeted critical infrastructure sectors including education, manufacturing, finance, healthcare, and transportation, with significant attacks reported against organizations in the United States, Germany, Singapore, Canada, and France. CISA and FBI have issued joint advisories warning about AvosLocker's targeting of critical infrastructure, highlighting the group's impact on essential services. **Current Status**: As of recent threat intelligence reporting, AvosLocker remains active, continuing to recruit affiliates and conduct ransomware operations against organizations globally. The group has been linked to 70 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 13, 2021; most recent post February 11, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: Avos.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • December 26, 2022Khoemacau Copper Mining listed by Avoslockeron the group's public leak site
Ransom demanded
$565M

Other recent disclosures by Avoslocker

Avoslocker has been linked to 70 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Avoslocker dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Energy & Utilities sector, which has 163 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Khoemacau Copper Mining is reported in Botswana, a country with 2 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Avoslocker means Khoemacau Copper Mining 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 Avoslocker'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.