Was Cheyney University hit by ransomware?

Cheyney University was listed by the pear 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 pear ransomware group?

pear 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 Cheyney University breach?

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

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Cheyney University

Claimed by Pear · listed 10 months ago

10m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedSep 14, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Pear
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Sep 14, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Cheyney University of Pennsylvania is the nation's oldest Historically Black College and University (HBCU), founded in 1837. Located in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, it is a public institution within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, offering undergraduate programs across 10 major fields of study with a 15:1 student-to-faculty ratio. The university is dedicated to empowering minority students through academics, character development, and social responsibility.

Industry: Higher Education (Historically Black College & University)
Address: 1837 University Circle, Cheyney, PA 19319, United States
Employees: 51-200
Founded: 1837

Attack summary

Severity: high — The status is 'data_published', indicating confirmed data exfiltration from a higher education institution that holds regulated PII including student records, financial aid data, and personally identifiable information for a minority-serving institution, likely implicating FERPA-protected records at scale.

The ransomware group 'pear' claims to have attacked Cheyney University of Pennsylvania and has published data ('data_published' status), though the leak post provides minimal detail about the specific data exfiltrated or whether encryption occurred.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

University records
Student data
Faculty and staff information
Financial aid records
Academic records

What the group claims

Cheyney University of Pennsylvania the nation’s first Historically Black College and University (HBCU)

Sources

Victim sitecheyney.edu
Leak posthttp://pearsmob5sn44ismokiusuld34pnfwi6ctgin3qbvonpoob4lh3rmtqd.onion/Companies/cheyney

Source

Indexed 10 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.

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Disclosure context

About pear

The Pear ransomware group is a relatively new threat actor that emerged in August 2025, operating with primarily financial motivations and targeting victims across multiple countries and sectors. Based on their recent emergence and limited public documentation, specific details about their country of origin and organizational structure remain unclear, though their targeting patterns suggest a financially-driven operation that may operate independently or as part of a smaller ransomware-as-a-service model. With 65 documented victims since their August 2025 debut, the group has demonstrated a preference for targeting organizations in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, and Switzerland, with particular focus on healthcare, business services, manufacturing, and technology sectors. Their attack methodology and specific technical details have not been extensively documented by major threat intelligence firms or law enforcement agencies, though their rapid victim acquisition suggests they have established effective initial access and encryption capabilities. Notable campaigns and high-profile attacks have not been publicly detailed by CISA, FBI, or major security research organizations, likely due to the group's recent emergence and relatively small scale compared to established ransomware operations. As of late 2025, Pear appears to remain active given their recent emergence and ongoing victim targeting across multiple geographic regions and industry verticals. The group has been linked to 103 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on August 5, 2025; most recent post July 13, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

September 14, 2025Cheyney University listed by pearon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by pear

pear has been linked to 103 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

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

If your organisation is affected

A listing by pear means Cheyney 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 pear'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.