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Play ransomware, also known as PlayCrypt and Balloonfly, is a financially motivated ransomware and data-extortion operation first observed in June 2022. The group conducts opportunistic and targeted intrusions against organizations internationally, including enterprises and smaller businesses. Confirmed victim sectors include manufacturing, technology, financial services, retail, and food production; the operation has also been associated with campaigns against healthcare, education, and IT-related manufacturing. Play has exploited unpatched public-facing Microsoft Exchange servers, including the OWASSRF chain involving CVE-2022-41080 and CVE-2022-41082, to obtain remote code execution and access victim networks. Other observed access methods include VPN access with valid credentials. Operators conduct Active Directory and security-software discovery, including use of AdFind and Grixba, and use legitimate remote-administration and remote-access tools during intrusions. In observed incidents, they have deployed ransomware manually through RDP and remotely through PsExec, and have encrypted or destroyed local backups. Play follows a double-extortion model: operators steal victim data before ransomware deployment and threaten public release when ransom demands are not met. The group maintains a leak site and has published stolen victim data. Its ransom notes use email-based negotiations rather than a Tor-hosted negotiation portal. Reported intrusions have also involved Remote PowerShell, BITSadmin, ConnectWise ScreenConnect, and SystemBC. Play activity and tradecraft have been noted to overlap in some respects with Hive and Nokayawa ransomware activity, but this does not establish shared operators or organizational continuity.
Mallory correlates actor tradecraft and target patterns against your stack, your sector, and your geography. See overlap before they land.
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.
47 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.
The Play ransomware group used OWASSRF with CVE-2022-41080 and CVE-2022-41082 to achieve RCE through Outlook Web Access. Operators leveraged Remote PowerShell to abuse CVE-2022-41082 for arbitrary command execution.
Ember Bear ... CVE-2022-41040 ... in Microsoft Exchange... Play ... 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.
79 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.