Was Defencebit hit by ransomware?

Defencebit was listed by the thegentlemen ransomware operation (United Kingdom), 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 thegentlemen ransomware group?

thegentlemen 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 Defencebit breach?

thegentlemen published data attributed to Defencebit. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Defencebit

Claimed by Thegentlemen · listed 12 days ago

12d

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedSep 30, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Thegentlemen
Status: Data leaked
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Government & Defense
Listed on leak site: Sep 30, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

DefenceBit is a boutique cybersecurity consulting firm founded in 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, spun off from Bullray-CIT. It specializes in offensive-security services including penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, red team engagements, and audits, serving government and critical-systems clients. The firm employs 1–10 staff with certifications including CEH, CISSP, and PMP.

Industry: Cybersecurity Consulting & Offensive Security Services
Address: Lisbon, Portugal
Employees: 1-10
Founded: 2018

Attack summary

Severity: high — DefenceBit is a government-contracted cybersecurity firm with access to sensitive client engagements, government training platforms (Cidadão Ciberseguro), and likely classified or sensitive government/critical-infrastructure data. Compromise of such a firm poses significant risk to national security and critical systems, even if the specific exfiltrated data is not detailed in this post.

The group claims to have compromised DefenceBit and published data. The leak post does not specify what data was exfiltrated or whether encryption occurred; it appears to be a listing/announcement with no detailed attack methodology stated.

high

What the group claims

defencebit.com zoominfo.com/c/defencebit/532842616 DefenceBit (founded 2018, Lisbon) is a boutique cybersecurity consulting firm — self-described "hackers, but the good ones" — spun off from Bullray-CIT, an Angolan-government-focused critical-systems integrator. It provides offensive-security services: penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, hardening, source-code and web/API audits, mobile app audits, social-engineering tests and full Red Team engagements, working to PTES/OWASP/OSSTMM standards with manual verification. The team holds top certifications (CEH, CISSP, PMP, Checkpoint CCSE, ISO 27001) and its co-founder later moved to a senior role at the NATO Communications and Information Agency. A notable credential is its contract with Portugal's National Cybersecurity Centre (CNCS) to run the "Cidadão Ciberseguro" course for government workers on the state NAU platform. It remains a very small company (1–10 staff)

Sources

Victim sitedefencebit.com

Source

Indexed 12 days 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 thegentlemen

thegentlemen is a ransomware group that emerged in September 2025, operating with apparent financial motivations based on their broad targeting of commercial sectors. The group has documented 267 victims across multiple countries, with primary focus on the United States, Thailand, France, Brazil, and India. Their targeting strategy demonstrates a preference for high-value sectors including manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and financial services organizations. Given the group's recent emergence and limited public documentation from established threat intelligence sources such as CISA, FBI, or major security research firms, specific details regarding their country of origin, operational structure, attack methodologies, encryption techniques, and whether they employ ransomware-as-a-service models remain unclear. The relatively high victim count of 267 in a short operational timeframe since September 2025 suggests either an aggressive campaign pace or potential inflation of victim numbers through affiliate operations, though without corroborating intelligence reports, the group's exact operational capabilities and notable campaigns cannot be definitively established. Current intelligence indicates the group remains active as of late 2025, though comprehensive threat profiling requires additional validated reporting from authoritative cybersecurity sources. The group has been linked to 966 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on September 9, 2025; most recent post October 12, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: the gentlemen.

Timeline of this disclosure

September 30, 2026Defencebit listed by thegentlemen on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by thegentlemen

thegentlemen has been linked to 966 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full thegentlemen dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Government & Defense sector, which has 6 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Defencebit is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 377 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by thegentlemen means Defencebit 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, NCSC (United Kingdom), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on thegentlemen'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.