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Columbia University

Claimed by GLOBAL SECRET · listed 3 days ago

296 GB (283,387 Files, 11,268 Folders)
Data size
2d
Age
since listed · listed for ransom

Status timeline

  1. ListedAug 15, 2026

Current state: Listed for ransom

At a glance

Group
GLOBAL SECRET
Status
Listed for ransom
Country
United States
Sector
Colleges & Universities
Listed on leak site
Aug 15, 2026
Data size
296 GB (283,387 Files, 11,268 Folders)

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Columbia University is one of the world's leading research universities, located in New York. Founded in 1754, it serves as a major institution for academic inquiry, research, and education with an annual revenue of approximately $6.6 billion.

Industry
Higher Education
Address
New York, US
Employees
20,000-25,000
Founded
1754

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Exfiltration of 296 GB from a major research university likely includes PII (student and employee records), research data, and sensitive institutional information. Scale and nature of data at a leading academic institution with 20,000+ individuals justifies critical classification.

GLOBAL SECRET claims to have exfiltrated 296 GB of data comprising 283,387 files and 11,268 folders from Columbia University. The group has listed the attack on their leak site with a disclosed deadline, indicating intent to publish the data.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Academic records
  • Research data
  • Student information
  • Faculty records
  • Administrative files

What the group claims

For more than 250 years, Columbia has been a leader in higher education in the nation and around the world. At the core of our wide range of academic inquiry is the commitment to attract and engage the best minds in pursuit of greater human understanding, pioneering new discoveries and service to society.

The leak post

captured from the group's site
Country: New York, US | Website: columbia.edu | Revenue: $6.6 Billion | Industry: Colleges & Universities | Employees: 20.000-25.000 | Properties: 296 GB (283,387 Files, 11,268 Folders)
For more than 250 years, Columbia has been a leader in higher education in the nation and around the world. At the core of our wide range of academic inquiry is the commitment to attract and engage the best minds in pursuit of greater human understanding, pioneering new discoveries and service to society.
RELEASE: Aug 16, 2026 — 12:00 UTC
ENDS: Aug 15, 2026 — 12:00 UTC

Screenshot of the leak post

Leak screenshot for Columbia University

Sources

Source

Indexed 3 days 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.

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Disclosure context

About GLOBAL SECRET

GLOBAL SECRET is an active ransomware group with 19 confirmed victims as of August 2026. It operates a single onion leak site. The limited victim count suggests a relatively early or low-volume operation. The group has been linked to 31 public disclosures across our corpus. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • August 15, 2026Columbia University listed by GLOBAL SECRETon the group's public leak site
Data size
296 GB (283,387 Files, 11,268 Folders)

Other recent disclosures by GLOBAL SECRET

GLOBAL SECRET has been linked to 31 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full GLOBAL SECRET dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Colleges & Universities sector. Geographically, Columbia University is reported in United States, a country with 3,162 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by GLOBAL SECRET means Columbia University appeared on a ransomware extortion site and is being pressured to pay before any publication. 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 GLOBAL SECRET'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.