Was Clearwater Marine Aquarium hit by ransomware?

Clearwater Marine Aquarium was listed by the Qilin 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 Qilin ransomware group?

Qilin 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 Clearwater Marine Aquarium breach?

Qilin published data attributed to Clearwater Marine Aquarium. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Claimed by Qilin · listed 2 months ago

58d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedApr 15, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Qilin
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Consumer Services
Listed on leak site: Apr 15, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) is a nonprofit marine life rescue center located in Clearwater, Florida, known internationally for its rehabilitation of dolphins, sea turtles, and other marine animals. CMA operates public aquarium facilities, educational programs, boat tours, and conservation research, and gained widespread recognition through the 'Dolphin Tale' films featuring Winter the Dolphin. The organization's mission centers on rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing marine life while funding animal care and ocean conservation.

Industry: Marine Life Rescue & Aquarium
Address: 249 Windward Passage, Clearwater, FL 33767, United States
Employees: 201-500
Founded: 1972

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Data is listed as published by the group, indicating confirmed exfiltration and disclosure, but no details on data type, volume, or proof files are provided in the post for this specific victim, preventing a higher severity classification. The victim is a nonprofit with potential donor PII and visitor/membership data at risk.

The Qilin ransomware group has listed Clearwater Marine Aquarium under a 'data_published' status on their leak blog, indicating data has been disclosed; however, the truncated leak post does not specify the volume, nature of exfiltrated data, or number of proof files associated with this specific victim.

medium

What the group claims

N/A

The leak post

captured from the group's site

Qilin blog Sorting Created At Name Bluize Software Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Mayer Law Firms & Legal Services Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Spirit Medical Transport Ambulance Services Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Domaine Des Tournels Manufacturing Company url May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Johnson Carter Architects Architecture, Engineering & Design Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More LTJ Industrial Services Industrial Machinery & Equipment Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More Brand X Hydrovac Services Civil Engineering Construction Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More John G Yphantides A Professional Law Law Firms & Legal Services Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More One Legal Law Firms & Legal Services Company url Zoom Info May 13, 2026 0 photos Learn More The Gravity Group Architecture, Engineering & Design Company url Zoom Info May 12, 2026 3 photos Learn More Mediapost Spain Advertising & Marketing Company url Zoom Info May 12, 2026 13 photos Learn More + 6 more AppDirect Software Company url Zoom Info May 11, 2026 0 photos …

Sources

Source

Indexed 2 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 Qilin

Qilin is a ransomware group that emerged in October 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations through targeted attacks against organizations across multiple sectors. The group appears to operate independently with limited public information available regarding their specific country of origin or affiliations to other ransomware families. Qilin employs double extortion tactics, typically exfiltrating sensitive data before deploying their encryption payload, though specific details about their initial access vectors and technical tools remain less documented in public security research. The group has demonstrated a broad targeting approach, with their 1645 known victims spanning multiple countries including the United States, France, Canada, United Kingdom, and Germany, with particular focus on manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and business services sectors. Based on available intelligence reporting, Qilin remains an active threat as of recent assessments, continuing their ransomware operations without significant reported law enforcement disruption. The group has been linked to 1,935 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 8, 2022; most recent post June 12, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

April 15, 2026Clearwater Marine Aquarium listed by Qilinon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Qilin

Qilin has been linked to 1,935 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Qilin dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Consumer Services sector, which has 396 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Clearwater Marine Aquarium is reported in United States, a country with 2,714 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Qilin means Clearwater Marine Aquarium 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 Qilin'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.