Disclosure context

About Interlock

Interlock is a recently emerged ransomware group that began operations in October 2024, primarily motivated by financial gain through extortion activities targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group's country of origin and potential affiliations remain unclear given their recent emergence, with insufficient public documentation to determine whether they operate as an independent entity or under a Ransomware-as-a-Service model. Limited public information exists regarding their specific attack methodologies, initial access vectors, or encryption techniques, as major cybersecurity firms and law enforcement agencies have not yet published comprehensive technical analyses of their operations. Since beginning operations, Interlock has reportedly compromised approximately 100 victims, with their targeting primarily focused on organizations in English-speaking countries including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, as well as Italy, while demonstrating a preference for attacking education, manufacturing, healthcare, and public sector entities. The group remains active as of late 2024, though comprehensive threat intelligence profiles from established security research organizations have not yet been published due to the group's recent emergence in the threat landscape. The group has been linked to 109 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 13, 2024; most recent post May 11, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

January 7, 2026Westlake Christian Academy listed by Interlockon 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, Westlake Christian Academy is reported in United States, a country with 7,392 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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Westlake Christian Academy

Claimed by Interlock · listed 4 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Jan 7, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Interlock
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Jan 7, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Westlake Christian Academy is a private Christian school located in Grayslake, Illinois, serving students from preschool through 12th grade. The school offers a Christ-centered, biblically integrated curriculum across early learning, elementary, and secondary programs. It emphasizes discipleship, family partnership, and personalized learning within a Christian worldview.

Industry: Private K-12 Christian Education
Address: Grayslake, IL, United States

Attack summary

Severity: high — Confirmed exfiltration and publication of student and staff PII from a K-12 school. Student data (including minors) constitutes regulated sensitive data under FERPA and potentially COPPA, making this a serious privacy incident affecting a vulnerable population.

The Interlock ransomware group claims to have exfiltrated the school's database, including its entire student list and staff information, and states that this data has been made publicly available.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Student records / full student list
Staff personal information
School database

What the group claims

Westlake Christian Academy is a private Christian school located in Grayslake. Due to security issues, its database, including its entire student list and staff information, was made publicly available. The staff at this institution exhibits extreme indifference and inappropriate behavior toward its students and staff.

Sources

Victim sitewestlakechristianacademy.org
Leak posthttp://24nmjyf6g5otaydjtintzmqv3qme3fnrt62ui2anqdz2hmxnwps4e2ad.onion/index.php?p=

Source

Indexed 4 months 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.