An Australian resources firm appears to be the victim of a data breach after being listed by a ransomware actor on its darknet leak site.
The Deadlock ransomware group claims to have hacked the Western Australian-based company West African Resources (WAF) in a leak post dated 26 July.
That data in question has been published, and while the hackers do not disclose its total volume, the number of files and folders seems considerable. The file structure is a mix of French and English. For instance, one folder, labelled “comptabilité”, appears to contain accounting data for two of West African Resources’ mining projects, including staff salaries, bank contracts and budget data.
There are 11 folders in the root of the directory, each containing numerous files and folders, and the data appears to be legitimate and up to date.
West African Resources has yet to respond to Cyber Daily’s request for comment.
Who is Deadlock?
Deadlock is one of many groups to have emerged in mid-2026 and has been steadily building its victim count since May. The group has already claimed more than 85 victims in July, largely throughout Europe and with a focus on the professional services and manufacturing sectors.
According to several researchers, the group is relatively unique in that it uses blockchain smart contracts to manage its command-and-control resources.
“This exploit of smart contracts to deliver proxy addresses is an interesting method where attackers can literally apply infinite variants of this technique; imagination is the limit,” cyber security firm Group-IB said in a blog post dedicated to the group.
“As Google reported recently, DPRK actors have used the Ethereum blockchain to hide malicious payloads, a technique dubbed as ‘Etherhiding’.”
The group appears to be Russian and has only recently begun operating its darknet leak site. West African Resources is the group’s first Australian victim.
Who is West African Resources?
Headquartered in Subiaco, Western Australia, West African Resources operates several mines and other projects in Burkina Faso.
The company has a total workforce of 3,622 in Burkina Faso, while WAF group employees number 2,350, with 95 per cent Burkinabe.
“West African Resources is focused on creating shareholder value through the acquisition, exploration and development of gold projects in West Africa,” WAF said on its website.
“West African is forecast to produce more than 5.3m oz gold from 2026 to 2035, with annual production averaging 533,000oz over 10 years and gold production peaking at 596,000oz in 2030.”
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David Hollingworth
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.