Description Summary
Dark Angels Team (also using the Dunghill leak site) emerged in May 2022 and is associated with one of the largest individual ransom payments ever publicly reported — USD 75 million from a Fortune 50 organization in early 2024. The group employs a low-volume, high-impact strategy, focusing on very large enterprises and exfiltrating massive amounts of data.
Threat Actor
Closed operator group; focuses on big-game hunting at extreme scale.
Technical Indicators
Encryption Extension
.crypt / payload-dependent
Encryption Algorithm
AES-256 + RSA-2048 (Babuk-derived)
Ransom Note Name
README.txt
Targeted Industries
Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturing
First Seen
May 2022
Last Seen
Active
Geographical Location
United States, Europe
MITRE ATT&CK Matrix
| Tactic | TTP | Technique Name |
|---|---|---|
| Initial Access x 3 | T1566 | Phishing |
| T1190 | Exploit Public-Facing Application | |
| T1078 | Valid Accounts | |
| Execution x 1 | T1059 | Command and Scripting Interpreter |
| Execution Persistence x 1 | T1053 | Scheduled Task/Job |
| Defense Evasion x 2 | T1562.001 | Disable or Modify Tools |
| T1070.004 | File Deletion | |
| Discovery x 2 | T1083 | File and Directory Discovery |
| T1082 | System Information Discovery | |
| Lateral Movement x 2 | T1021.001 | Remote Services: RDP |
| T1021.002 | SMB/Windows Admin Shares | |
| Exfiltration x 2 | T1041 | Exfiltration Over C2 Channel |
| T1567.002 | Exfiltration to Cloud Storage | |
| Impact x 3 | T1486 | Data Encrypted for Impact |
| T1490 | Inhibit System Recovery | |
| T1489 | Service Stop |