Disclosure context

About Vicesociety

Vicesociety is a ransomware group that emerged in May 2021, primarily motivated by financial gain through targeting critical infrastructure and public service organizations. The group's origin and specific affiliations remain largely undetermined by public threat intelligence reporting, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent ransomware operation rather than a established RaaS model. Vicesociety primarily gains initial access through exploitation of public-facing applications and credential-based attacks, with documented cases showing they particularly focus on compromising remote access services and vulnerable web applications before deploying their ransomware payload across victim networks. The group has demonstrated a clear preference for targeting educational institutions, government agencies, and healthcare organizations, with their 188 documented victims concentrated heavily in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Spain, indicating a focus on English-speaking and Western European entities. While specific high-profile campaigns have not been extensively detailed in major public threat intelligence reports from CISA or FBI advisories, the group's consistent targeting of critical sectors like education and healthcare has drawn attention from security researchers monitoring threats to essential services. Vicesociety remains active as of recent threat intelligence assessments, continuing their operations against similar target sectors with no documented law enforcement disruption or significant operational changes. The group has been linked to 188 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on May 31, 2021; most recent post June 20, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

January 29, 2023NPTC Group of Colleges listed by Vicesocietyon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 694 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, NPTC Group of Colleges is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 902 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

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.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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NPTC Group of Colleges

Claimed by Vicesociety · listed 3 years ago

40m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Jan 29, 2023
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Vicesociety
Status: Data leaked
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Jan 29, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

NPTC Group of Colleges is one of the largest Further Education providers in Wales, formerly comprising Neath Port Talbot College and Coleg Powys. It covers approximately 30% of Wales's landmass and operates multiple campuses including Neath College, Afan College, Brecon Beacons College, and Newtown College. The institution delivers a wide range of programmes including A Levels, apprenticeships, higher education, and adult learning.

Industry: Further Education (FE College Group)
Address: Neath Port Talbot and Powys, Wales, United Kingdom

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been confirmed as published by Vice Society, a group known for exfiltrating significant volumes of sensitive institutional data. An FE college holds substantial PII including student and staff records, financial information, and potentially safeguarding data for minors, representing a significant data breach at a public educational institution.

Vice Society claims to have compromised NPTC Group of Colleges and has published data, as indicated by the 'data_published' disclosure status. The specific nature of exfiltrated data has not been detailed in the truncated leak post, but the group is known to exfiltrate sensitive institutional data prior to or without encryption.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Student records
Staff records
Administrative documents
Potentially financial and personal data

What the group claims

NPTC Group of Colleges, formerly Neath Port Talbot College and Coleg Powys, is one of the largest Further Education providers in Wales covering 30 per cent of the countryâ€™s landmass.

Sources

Victim sitenptcgroup.ac.uk/

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.