Was Stratford University hit by ransomware?

Stratford University was listed by the Snatch 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 Snatch ransomware group?

Snatch 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 Stratford University breach?

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

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Stratford University

Claimed by Snatch · listed 4 years ago

48m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 17, 2022
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Snatch
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Aug 17, 2022

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Stratford University is a private university based in the United States offering Associate, Bachelor's, and Master's degree programs across disciplines including business administration, computer science and information technology, hospitality and culinary arts, health sciences, and nursing. The university operates multiple campuses primarily in the Mid-Atlantic region. It serves a diverse student population including working adults and international students.

Industry: Higher Education
Employees: 201-500

Attack summary

Severity: critical — The disclosed status is 'data_published', confirming exfiltration. A university holds large volumes of regulated PII including student educational records (FERPA-protected), health sciences and nursing program data (potentially HIPAA-adjacent), and financial aid records, constituting sensitive data at scale across a vulnerable population.

The Snatch ransomware group claims to have attacked Stratford University and has published data, indicating confirmed exfiltration; the specific data categories and volume are not detailed in the leak post excerpt.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Student records
Employee records
Academic records
Health sciences / nursing program data
Financial records
Personally identifiable information (PII)

What the group claims

Stratford University offers Associates, Bachelors, and Masters degrees in business administration; computer science and information technology; hospitality and culinary arts; health sciences; and nursing.

Source

Indexed 4 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 Snatch

Snatch is a ransomware group that emerged in November 2021, operating with primarily financial motivations and targeting organizations across multiple sectors including business services, government, education, manufacturing, and healthcare. The group has compromised at least 142 known victims, with their attacks concentrated primarily in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, and France. Little is publicly documented about Snatch's specific country of origin or affiliations with other cybercriminal organizations, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent ransomware operation. The group's attack methodology and specific technical details regarding initial access vectors, encryption methods, and data exfiltration practices have not been extensively documented in public threat intelligence reports from major security firms or government agencies. While Snatch has maintained a notable victim count across diverse geographic regions and industry sectors, there are no widely reported major campaigns or high-profile attacks that have drawn significant public attention or law enforcement action. Based on available public information, Snatch appears to remain an active ransomware operation as of recent reporting periods, though comprehensive details about their current operational status and recent activities are limited in open-source intelligence. The group has been linked to 142 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 29, 2021; most recent post May 16, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 17, 2022Stratford University listed by Snatchon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Snatch

Snatch has been linked to 142 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Snatch dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 1,085 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Stratford University is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Snatch means Stratford 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 Snatch'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.