Claim details
Qilin listed Duffy’s Sports Grill. The claim is stable external cyber evidence but does not independently prove ransomware deployment, data theft or actor responsibility.
Duffy’s Sports Grill cyber disruption
Summary
Duffy’s Sports Grill experienced multi-day card-payment and MVP loyalty disruptions at multiple Florida restaurants beginning by March 13. Customer reports also described cash-only service, a manual card workaround, event cancellations and at least one temporary closure. Qilin’s March 14 listing remains a low-confidence attribution claim, and no later continuing impact was identified, so the incident is presumed resolved.
Key facts
Timeline
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First public signal:
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Earliest public indication of an outage, disruption, closure or other observable incident impact. The signal does not need to mention cybersecurity. -
First public cyber evidence:
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Earliest credible public information connecting the incident or disruption to malicious cyber activity. -
Last impact seen:
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Latest public indication that disruption, degraded operations, recovery work or unresolved impact was still ongoing.
Primary victim organization
Impacted locations
- Boca Raton, Florida
- Boynton Beach, Florida
- Cape Coral, Florida
- Coconut Creek, Florida
- Estero, Florida
- Fort Lauderdale, Florida
- Fort Myers, Florida
- Greenacres, Florida
- Jupiter, Florida
- Lake Mary, Florida
- Lake Worth, Florida
- Miami, Florida
- North Miami Beach, Florida
- North Palm Beach, Florida
- Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
- Plantation, Florida
- Port St. Lucie, Florida
- Royal Palm Beach, Florida
- Sarasota, Florida
- Stuart, Florida
- Tampa, Florida
- West Palm Beach, Florida
Organization types
Critical infrastructure sector
DysruptionHub coverage
Incident characteristics
Assessments
DD-CIT assessment
Only external sources publicly identify the event as cyber-related. Credible external sources document the disruption, but the organization does not clearly do so.
Attack mechanisms
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Ransomware
Malware that encrypts systems or data, typically accompanied by a ransom demand.
Data impacts
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Unknown data impact
The incident is cyber-related, but available evidence does not establish whether or how data was affected.
Operational impacts
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Payment processing disruption
The organization could not process, receive, issue, reconcile, or record payments normally.
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Application unavailable
A specific application or software platform became unavailable or unusable.
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Manual workaround required
Staff or users had to rely on paper, telephone, in-person, offline, or other manual processes.
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Event or activity cancellation
Scheduled events, meetings, hearings, classes, procedures, programs, or other activities were canceled.
Extortion indicators
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Leak-site listing
The victim was listed on a threat actor or ransomware data-leak site as an alleged target or nonpaying victim.
Incident narrative
Analyst assessment
We reported that Duffy’s Sports Grill experienced multi-day card-payment and MVP loyalty disruptions at multiple Florida restaurants beginning by March 13. Qilin listed the chain on March 14. That stable claim is concrete external cyber evidence, making cyber involvement confirmed for registry purposes, but it does not prove ransomware deployment, encryption, data theft or Qilin responsibility.
Operational significance
Some restaurants reportedly operated cash-only, one location used a manual card workaround, events were canceled and at least one temporary closure was reported. The evidence supports payment and loyalty disruption more strongly than a chainwide restaurant shutdown.
Geographic scope
Duffy’s official directory lists 27 restaurant entries across 21 Florida localities after municipality-level deduplication. The Greenacres restaurant uses a West Palm Beach mailing address but is physically in Greenacres. The Sarasota restaurant uses a Sarasota mailing address but is in Manatee County. Downtown Stuart and Tampa remain visible in the directory even though its underlying feed marks them closed.
Public reporting identified impacts at only some restaurants and did not name every affected store. The restaurant localities are therefore mapped as low-confidence possible incident scope, not as evidence that every listed restaurant was disrupted. They are separately linked to the organization at high confidence, except Tampa, which carries a closure caveat.
Current status
No public source located after March 23 documented continuing payment, loyalty or restaurant-service disruption. With no later operational-impact observation or dated all-clear, the incident remains presumed resolved rather than confirmed resolved.
Confidence and uncertainty
Confidence is medium that the documented payment and loyalty disruptions occurred. Ransomware confidence remains medium because the Qilin listing coincided with reported systems problems, but Duffy’s has not confirmed ransomware and no public technical evidence establishes encryption. Threat-actor confidence remains low. The public record does not establish data access or theft.
Analytic gaps
The public record does not establish the entry vector, affected systems, encryption scope, data-access scope, demand, payment, exact affected restaurants or final restoration date. No additional ransomware or extortion victim claim was identified beyond Qilin’s listing.
Threat actor and claim
Organizations involved
Duffy’s Sports Grill
Locations
Additional locations
- Boca Raton, Florida
- Boynton Beach, Florida
- Cape Coral, Florida
- Coconut Creek, Florida
- Estero, Florida
- Fort Lauderdale, Florida
- Fort Myers, Florida
- Greenacres, Florida
- Jupiter, Florida
- Lake Mary, Florida
- Miami, Florida
- North Miami Beach, Florida
- North Palm Beach, Florida
- Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
- Plantation, Florida
- Port St. Lucie, Florida
- Royal Palm Beach, Florida
- Sarasota, Florida
- Stuart, Florida
- Tampa, Florida
- West Palm Beach, Florida
Organization type
Critical infrastructure
Impacted locations
Boca Raton, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 2 restaurants in Boca Raton, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Boynton Beach, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 2 restaurants in Boynton Beach, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Cape Coral, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Cape Coral, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Coconut Creek, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Coconut Creek, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Estero, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Estero, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Fort Myers, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Fort Myers, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Greenacres, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Greenacres, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Jupiter, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Jupiter, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Lake Mary, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Lake Mary, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Lake Worth, Florida
Miami, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Miami, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
North Miami Beach, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in North Miami Beach, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
North Palm Beach, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in North Palm Beach, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Plantation, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Plantation, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Port St. Lucie, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 2 restaurants in Port St. Lucie, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Royal Palm Beach, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Royal Palm Beach, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Sarasota, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 1 restaurant in Sarasota, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Stuart, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 2 restaurants in Stuart, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Tampa, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory displayed a Tampa restaurant but marked the entry closed. Public reporting did not identify the affected stores or establish whether Tampa was open or disrupted in March.
West Palm Beach, Florida
Low-confidence possible scope: Duffy’s directory lists 3 restaurants in West Palm Beach, but public reporting did not identify which restaurants experienced the payment or loyalty disruption.
Sources
We reported card-payment and MVP loyalty disruptions at multiple Florida restaurants, including cash-only service, manual card handling, canceled events and at least one temporary closure, while treating Qilin’s listing as unconfirmed.
Ransomware.live recorded a Qilin extortion-site listing identifying Duffy’s Sports Grill.
The report described several days of card-processing disruption and effects on the MVP rewards program.
Duffy’s official directory displayed 27 restaurant entries across Florida. After correcting the Greenacres restaurant’s physical municipality and deduplicating cities with multiple restaurants, the directory represented 21 localities. The underlying feed marked Downtown Stuart and Tampa closed, though both entries remained visible.
The organization’s official website describes its identity, services, operating role and public or customer-facing programs.
The Census Bureau Gazetteer Files provide authoritative geographic reference data for states, counties, county equivalents and places in the United States.
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