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Play is a financially motivated ransomware and data-extortion operation active since at least June 2022. It is also known as Balloonfly and PlayCrypt. The group conducts ransomware intrusions against organizations in North America and Europe, including technology, manufacturing, financial services, retail, food-production, and healthcare targets. Play has exploited vulnerable on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers, including through the OWASSRF exploit chain, and has also gained access through VPN services using legitimate credentials. Operators have deployed remote-access tooling and used RDP and PsExec to distribute ransomware within victim environments. Play has used AdFind for Active Directory enumeration and Grixba to identify installed antivirus products. Its operations include theft of victim data before encryption, destruction or encryption of accessible backups, and publication of stolen data through a leak site when victims do not pay. Ransom negotiations are conducted by email rather than a dedicated Tor-based negotiation portal.
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Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
Geographies tied to known operations.
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
46 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
10 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
5 additional families tracked in Mallory.
16 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 16 of them exploited in the wild.
The Common Log File System (CLFS) 0-day vulnerability CVE-2025–29824 was confirmed to have been exploited by attackers associated with PLAY and Storm-2460, and according to Symantec, the vulnerability may have already fallen into the hands of multiple attackers and been exploited before it was patched.
Ember Bear ... CVE-2022-41040 ... in Microsoft Exchange... Play ... CVE-2022-41082 and CVE-2022-41040 ("ProxyNotShell") in Microsoft Exchange.
Play has exploited known vulnerabilities for initial access including ... CVE-2022-41082 and CVE-2022-41040 ("ProxyNotShell") in Microsoft Exchange.
multiple ransomware groups, including initial access brokers with ties to Play ransomware operators, are also exploiting three vulnerabilities - CVE-2024-57727 - in remote monitoring and management tool SimpleHelp to conduct remote code execution at many U.S.-based entities
Agrius exploits public-facing applications for initial access to victim environments. Examples include widespread attempts to exploit CVE-2018-13379 in FortiOS devices... APT29 has exploited ... CVE-2018-13379 for FortiGate VPNs... Dragonfly ... exploited ... CVE-2018-13379 for Fortinet VPNs... Magic Hound ... exploited ... Fortios SSL VPNs (CVE-2018-13379). Play ... including CVE-2018-13379 ... in FortiOS.
11 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
76 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Conducted a ransomware attack against Meteor Group in Germany.
Conducted a ransomware attack against KRC Machine Tool Solutions, a US manufacturing organization.
Conducted a ransomware attack against Figgins Family Wine Estates, a U.S.-based agriculture and food-production organization.
Conducted a ransomware attack against MEQ, a Canadian organization.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.