Ransomware group profile · #5 by claimed victims

Play ransomwarealso PlayCrypt, Balloonfly

Closed group, not operated as an affiliate programme, which makes its tradecraft unusually consistent between intrusions. Known for intermittent encryption and for a custom information stealer built for the reconnaissance stage.

Active First seen Jun 2022 ATT&CK G1040 AES-RSA hybrid with intermittent encryption of file chunks

1,316Victims claimed on leak sites

18Victims in the last 30 days

48Victims in the last 90 days

46Countries hit

31Leak-site URLs tracked, 3 online

10 Sep 2026Latest claim recorded

Victimology

Who Play claims to have breached, from 1,316 leak-site posts recorded by VULONE.

Claims per month last 12 months

Top sectors

Manufacturing347

Professional Services301

Technology166

Retail & E-Commerce98

Transportation73

Agriculture and Food Production64

Financial Services47

Hospitality45

Top countries

United States939

Canada96

United Kingdom41

Germany37

Netherlands17

Sweden15

Switzerland10

Australia9

Latest claimed victims 12 most recent

Victim	Sector	Country	Claimed
Sys-kool	—	—	10 Sep 2026
Grunthal Welding & Supplies	—	—	10 Sep 2026
Sys-kool sys-kool.com	Technology	—	10 Sep 2026
Grunthal Welding & Supplies grunthalwelding.com	Manufacturing	CA	10 Sep 2026
Red Star Oil	—	—	9 Sep 2026
GT Distributors	—	—	9 Sep 2026
Red Star Oil redstaroil.com	Energy & Utilities	RS	8 Sep 2026
GT Distributors gtdist.com	Retail & E-Commerce	US	8 Sep 2026
MEQ mobiliermeq.com	Not Found	CA	31 Aug 2026
Figgins Family Wine Estates figginsfamily.com	Agriculture and Food Production	US	31 Aug 2026
KRC Machine Tool Solutions krcmachinetoolsolutions.com	Manufacturing	US	31 Aug 2026
Meteor Group meteor.de	Other	DE	31 Aug 2026

All 1,316 Play victims, searchable

Full victim list with claim posts, domains, timing and exports, plus the negotiation chats and leak-site screenshots VULONE archives for this crew.

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Tactics, techniques and procedures

5 MITRE ATT&CK techniques mapped to Play from public advisories and VULONE's own analysis.

Tactic	Technique	Procedure	Confidence
Initial Access	T1133 External Remote Services	RDP and VPN with valid accounts.	Confirmed
Initial Access	T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application	Exploited FortiOS (CVE-2018-13379, CVE-2020-12812) and Microsoft Exchange ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082).	Confirmed
Discovery	T1087.002 Domain Account	AdFind and a custom stealer, Grixba, to enumerate the domain and inventory installed security software.	Confirmed
Impact	T1486 Data Encrypted for Impact	Intermittent encryption: only portions of each file are encrypted, which is faster and defeats detection that samples file entropy.	Confirmed
Defense Evasion	T1562.001 Disable or Modify Tools	GMER, IOBit and PowerTool used to disable endpoint protection.	Confirmed

Tooling observed

Indicators, detections and the full playbook

Hashes, C2 addresses, onion services, Sigma and YARA detections per technique, and the negotiation transcripts are available to signed-in analysts.

See full IOCs

Attack playbook

How a typical Play intrusion unfolds, section by section.

Encryption

Intermittent encryption — Encrypting only part of each file halves the time on target and undermines entropy-based detection. It is now common across several families and is a good reason to move detection towards behaviour and rate rather than f…

Frequently asked

Is Play ransomware still active?

Play is tracked as active. The most recent leak-site claim VULONE recorded is dated 10 September 2026. 18 victims were claimed in the last 30 days.

How many victims has Play claimed?

VULONE has recorded 1,316 leak-site victim claims attributed to Play since November 2022, across 46 countries and 14 sectors.

Which industries does Play target?

The sectors most often named on the Play leak site are Manufacturing, Professional Services, Technology.

Which countries are most affected by Play?

Most Play victims recorded by VULONE are located in United States, Canada, United Kingdom.

Where does VULONE get Play victim data?

Claims are collected continuously from the group's own leak sites and cross-checked with ransomware.live and RansomLook. A claim is the group's assertion, not a confirmed breach.

VULONE research mentioning Play

The Australian Behind Doxbin: Identifying Unindicted Co-Conspirator CC-1 AKA KTFor years, "KT" ruled Doxbin from the shadows, until a Minecraft griefer's forgotten footprints, a breached email, and one arrogant GitHub p Cyberleek: Mapping the Actor Behind the Leak The Cyberleek attribution has been questioned after an analysis of the evidence surrounding the GnomodelincuenT claim. This report examines Flotilla: Anatomy of an Undocumented Cross-Platform Covert-Browser Botnet Delivered Through the GCleaner ChannelAn undocumented Turkish-language malware platform running a covert Electron browser botnet on Windows and arm64 agents on macOS, sharing one QUAKE3, The XSS Moderator Who Wrote REvil

Public sources

Title	Publisher	Date
#StopRansomware: Play Ransomware (AA23-352A)	CISA / FBI / ACSC	18 Dec 2023

Other ransomware groups

Victim claims are collected from leak sites and enrichment partners (ransomware.live, RansomLook) and represent the group's own assertions, not confirmed breaches. Profile last updated 16 September 2026. Questions or corrections: [email protected].