IceFire is a ransomware operation that emerged in August 2022, primarily motivated by financial gain through extortion campaigns targeting various organizations. The group operates as an independent ransomware family with suspected ties to Russian-speaking cybercriminals, though definitive attribution remains unclear. IceFire employs double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before deploying their ransomware payload, and has been observed using various initial access methods including exploiting known vulnerabilities in internet-facing applications and services. The ransomware utilizes strong encryption algorithms to lock victim files and threatens to publish stolen data on leak sites if ransom demands are not met. While the group has maintained a relatively low profile compared to other major ransomware operations, security researchers have documented approximately 11 confirmed victims across different sectors since their emergence. IceFire remains active as of current intelligence reporting, continuing to evolve their tactics and target organizations globally. The group has been linked to 11 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on August 20, 2022. The operation is currently inactive.
If your organisation is affected
A listing by Icefire means *.bestservers.pro 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 Icefire'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.
