Was Montana State University hit by ransomware?

Montana State University was listed by the Royal ransomware operation (United States), and stolen data was published on the group's leak site. Darkfield tracks this disclosure with the original leak post, screenshot and group context.

Who is the Royal ransomware group?

Royal is a ransomware operator tracked by Darkfield. See the full operator dossier for its known victims, sectors targeted, IOCs and leak-site infrastructure.

What data was leaked in the Montana State University breach?

Royal published data attributed to Montana State University (~105 GB). Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

← All victims

Montana State University

Claimed by Royal · listed 3 years ago

105 GB

Data size

39m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedMay 2, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Royal
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: May 2, 2023
Data size: 105 GB

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Montana State University (MSU) is a public research university located in Bozeman, Montana. It offers over 250 degree programs across numerous colleges and departments and is classified as a top-tier research institution. MSU also conducts significant research and economic development activities and operates extension programs across Montana.

Industry: Higher Education / Research University
Address: Bozeman, Montana, United States
Founded: 1893

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The group claims confirmed exfiltration of 105 GB of data including student PII and medical records (regulated data under FERPA/HIPAA) at scale from a major public university, and the data is stated to have already been published.

The Royal ransomware group claims to have exfiltrated 105 GB of data from Montana State University, including financial and administrative documents, as well as students' personal and medical information. The group states the data has been published and additional data from an affiliated college may also be released.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Student personal information (PII)
Student medical information
Financial documents
Administrative documents

What the group claims

Montana State University, located in the city of Bozeman, is an educational institution that offers a variety of academic programs and activities for students as well as a variety of personal document of the same student for everyone interested. They failed to storage personal data in a right way and lost 105GB. You can find there money flow of a big University as it represented in numerous financial and administrative documents. Students' personal and medical information is also available like in our previous post about their affiliated college. We will share it soon.

Sources

Victim sitemontana.edu
Leak posthttp://royal4ezp7xrbakkus3oofjw6gszrohpodmdnfbe5e4w3og5sm7vb3qd.onion/VhS9DKQIXmiT4ANgnVH2cujt64wJIhBj

Source

Indexed 3 years ago

This page surfaces a public ransomware disclosure indexed by Darkfield. Original posts come from the operator's own leak site; we cross-check against ransomware.live, RansomLook and RansomWatch where applicable. Share this URL freely.

Is this your supplier? Your competitor? You?

Pro plans monitor your domain, corporate emails, and crypto wallets across every new ransomware leak-site post, breach dump and Telegram callout — alerts within 5 minutes.

Disclosure context

About Royal

Royal is a financially motivated ransomware group that emerged in November 2022, quickly establishing itself as a significant threat with over 200 documented victims across multiple sectors. The group is believed to operate independently rather than as a ransomware-as-a-service model, though their exact country of origin remains unclear based on publicly available intelligence. Royal primarily gains initial access through phishing campaigns and exploitation of remote desktop protocols, subsequently deploying custom ransomware that encrypts victim files while exfiltrating sensitive data for double extortion tactics. The group has demonstrated a preference for targeting critical infrastructure and public services, with notable attacks against educational institutions, healthcare facilities, and government entities primarily in the United States, though they have also significantly impacted organizations across Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France. Their encryption methodology involves custom-built malware that systematically encrypts files while maintaining persistence on compromised networks. As of recent reporting from federal agencies including CISA and FBI advisories, Royal remains an active threat with ongoing campaigns targeting organizations across their preferred sectors, particularly focusing on entities with limited cybersecurity resources that may be more likely to pay ransom demands. The group has been linked to 211 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 4, 2022; most recent post July 19, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

May 2, 2023Montana State University listed by Royalon the group's public leak site

Data size: 105 GB

Other recent disclosures by Royal

Royal has been linked to 211 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Royal dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 1,082 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Montana State University is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Royal means Montana State University appeared on a ransomware extortion site and data attributed to it has been published. If this is your organisation, or a supplier you depend on, the priority is to confirm the intrusion and contain it before the window to act closes.

Engage your incident-response team and preserve forensic evidence before remediating — do not wipe affected systems first.
Force a password reset and revoke active sessions for exposed accounts; rotate any credentials, API keys or certificates that may have been in the stolen data.
Assess regulatory notification duties (GDPR, NIS2, sector regulators) — many carry a 72-hour reporting clock from awareness.
Report the incident to your national CERT, CISA (United States), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on Royal's leak site and across paste and breach channels, and brief downstream partners who may be exposed through you.

How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.