Was publicsafety.ohio.gov hit by ransomware?

publicsafety.ohio.gov was listed by the Killsecurity 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 Killsecurity ransomware group?

Killsecurity 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 publicsafety.ohio.gov breach?

Killsecurity published data attributed to publicsafety.ohio.gov. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Ohio Department of Public Safety

listed as publicsafety.ohio.gov · Claimed by Killsecurity · listed 6 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJan 10, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Killsecurity
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Public Sector
Listed on leak site: Jan 10, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Ohio Department of Public Safety (ODPS) is a state government agency responsible for public safety services in Ohio, including law enforcement oversight, emergency management, motor vehicle licensing, and highway safety programs. It operates multiple divisions such as the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. ODPS serves millions of Ohio residents and manages sensitive law enforcement, licensing, and personal identity records.

Industry: State Government – Public Safety & Law Enforcement
Address: 1970 West Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio 43223, United States
Employees: 1000+
Founded: 1991

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The target is a U.S. state public safety agency managing large-scale PII, law enforcement records, driver licensing data, and potentially criminal justice information — all regulated and highly sensitive categories. Data_published status indicates exfiltration has occurred, meeting the critical threshold.

KillSecurity claims to have compromised publicsafety.ohio.gov and has published data (disclosed_status: data_published), though the leak post itself contains minimal detail, listing a ransom price as unknown and indicating one disclosure stage. No specific data volumes or file counts are described in the truncated post.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Government employee records
Law enforcement data
Motor vehicle / driver licensing records
Personal Identifiable Information (PII) of Ohio residents
Internal government communications
Criminal justice records

What the group claims

Price ??? Disclosures 0/1

Sources

Victim siteexample.com

Source

Indexed 6 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 Killsecurity

Killsecurity is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in March 2024, operating with apparent financial motivations and demonstrating rapid expansion in their victim targeting. The group's origin and affiliations remain unclear due to limited public documentation from major threat intelligence sources, though their global targeting pattern suggests a sophisticated operation. Based on available victim data, Killsecurity has compromised 276 organizations primarily across the United States, India, United Kingdom, Brazil, and Belgium, with a particular focus on healthcare, technology, business services, and financial sectors. The group's attack methodology, encryption techniques, and specific tools remain undocumented in public threat intelligence reports from established security firms. Notable campaigns and high-profile victims have not been extensively documented by major cybersecurity organizations or law enforcement agencies, likely due to the group's recent emergence. Killsecurity appears to remain active as of current reporting, though comprehensive analysis of their operations is limited by the lack of detailed technical documentation from reputable threat intelligence sources. The group has been linked to 277 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on March 21, 2024; most recent post May 15, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

January 10, 2026publicsafety.ohio.gov listed by Killsecurityon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Killsecurity

Killsecurity has been linked to 277 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Killsecurity dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Public Sector sector, which has 466 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, publicsafety.ohio.gov is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Killsecurity means publicsafety.ohio.gov 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 Killsecurity'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.