Was Silverback Exploration hit by ransomware?

Silverback Exploration was listed by the BianLian 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 BianLian ransomware group?

BianLian 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 Silverback Exploration breach?

BianLian published data attributed to Silverback Exploration. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Riley Exploration Permian, Inc.

listed as Silverback Exploration · Claimed by BianLian · listed 2 years ago

20m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedNov 21, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: BianLian
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Energy
Listed on leak site: Nov 21, 2024

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Riley Exploration Permian, Inc. is an independent oil and gas company based in San Antonio, Texas, focused on leasing and drilling opportunities in the Permian Basin. The company is publicly traded and maintains investor relations, SEC filings, and corporate governance disclosures.

Industry: Oil & Gas Exploration & Production

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Confirmed data publication by ransomware group targeting an oil & gas company with potential operational significance, but lack of specific detail on data sensitivity, volume, or proof count limits classification to medium rather than high.

BianLian claims to have attacked Silverback Exploration (now identified as Riley Exploration Permian) and published exfiltrated data. The specific data categories and scope are not detailed in the provided leak post excerpt.

medium

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Business records
Operational data

What the group claims

Silverback Exploration is a San Antonio-based, independent oil and gas company focused on the pursuit of leasing and drilling opportunities.

Sources

Victim sitesilverbackexp.com
Leak posthttp://bianlianlbc5an4kgnay3opdemgcryg2kpfcbgczopmm3dnbz3uaunad.onion/companies/silverbackexp.com/

Source

Indexed 2 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 BianLian

**Overview:** BianLian is a financially motivated ransomware group that emerged in July 2022, quickly establishing itself as a significant threat to organizations across multiple sectors. The group operates with a primary focus on extorting victims for financial gain through data encryption and exfiltration tactics. **Origin & Affiliation:** While the exact country of origin remains unconfirmed by public reporting, BianLian appears to operate as an independent ransomware group rather than following a traditional Ransomware-as-a-Service model. Security researchers have not established definitive links between BianLian and other known ransomware families or cybercriminal organizations. **Attack Methodology:** BianLian typically gains initial access through compromised Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials and exploits of public-facing applications, according to security researchers. The group employs double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before encrypting victim systems, and threatens to publish exfiltrated information on their leak site if ransom demands are not met. Their operations demonstrate sophisticated understanding of network environments and data exfiltration techniques. **Notable Campaigns:** Since its emergence, BianLian has successfully compromised over 670 organizations globally, with documented cases spanning critical infrastructure and major corporations across their primary target sectors. The group has been particularly active in targeting healthcare organizations, prompting attention from cybersecurity agencies due to the critical nature of these attacks. **Current Status:** As of recent threat intelligence reporting, BianLian remains an active ransomware threat, continuing to target organizations primarily in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, and Australia. The group has been linked to 668 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 14, 2022; most recent post March 31, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: Hydra.

Timeline of this disclosure

November 21, 2024Silverback Exploration listed by BianLianon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by BianLian

BianLian has been linked to 668 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full BianLian dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Energy sector, which has 652 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Silverback Exploration is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by BianLian means Silverback Exploration 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 BianLian'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.