Was Taylor University hit by ransomware?

Taylor University was listed by the Moneymessage 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 Moneymessage ransomware group?

Moneymessage 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 Taylor University breach?

Moneymessage published data attributed to Taylor University. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Taylor University

Claimed by Moneymessage · listed 3 years ago

34m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedSep 3, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Moneymessage
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Sep 3, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Taylor University is a private Christian liberal arts university located in Upland, Indiana. It offers undergraduate, graduate, and online programs across 100+ areas of study within a Christ-centered academic environment. The university serves pre-collegiate, undergraduate, and adult learners in graduate and professional programs.

Industry: Christian Liberal Arts Higher Education
Address: Upland, Indiana, United States
Employees: 501-1000
Founded: 1846

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data is reported as published by the group against an educational institution, which would likely include PII of students, staff, and potentially minors (pre-collegiate programs), financial records, and academic data at meaningful scale; no ransom amount or file size was provided but the disclosed status is data_published indicating confirmed exfiltration.

The Moneymessage ransomware group claims to have attacked Taylor University with the disclosure status listed as data_published; no specific details about encryption, exfiltration scope, or data types were captured in the leak post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Student records
Faculty and staff personal information
Financial aid and scholarship data
Admissions records
Academic records
Alumni and donor information

Sources

Victim sitetaylor.edu
Leak posthttp://blogvl7tjyjvsfthobttze52w36wwiz34hrfcmorgvdzb6hikucb7aqd.onion/news.php?id=4

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.

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Disclosure context

About Moneymessage

Moneymessage is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in March 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations and targeting organizations across multiple sectors globally. Given the group's recent emergence and limited public documentation from major security agencies, detailed information about their origin and affiliations remains largely unknown, though their targeting patterns suggest they may operate as a smaller independent operation rather than a large-scale RaaS model. The group has demonstrated a broad targeting approach across healthcare, business services, public sector, government, and financial organizations, with their 29 documented victims spanning geographically diverse regions including the United States, Italy, Argentina, Bangladesh, and Russia, though specific attack methodologies and technical capabilities have not been extensively documented by major threat intelligence firms. Notable campaigns and high-profile attacks attributed to Moneymessage have not been widely reported by established security researchers or law enforcement agencies, likely due to the group's relatively recent emergence and smaller scale of operations compared to more prominent ransomware families. The group appears to remain active as of available reporting, though comprehensive analysis of their current operational status is limited by the lack of detailed public documentation from authoritative sources such as CISA, FBI, or major cybersecurity firms. The group has been linked to 34 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on March 29, 2023; most recent post July 9, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: money message.

Timeline of this disclosure

September 3, 2023Taylor University listed by Moneymessageon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Moneymessage

Moneymessage has been linked to 34 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Moneymessage 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, Taylor University is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Moneymessage means Taylor 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 Moneymessage'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.