Was Institute of Culinary Education hit by ransomware?

Institute of Culinary Education was listed by the Payouts King 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 Payouts King ransomware group?

Payouts King 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 Institute of Culinary Education breach?

Payouts King published data attributed to Institute of Culinary Education. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Institute of Culinary Education

Claimed by Payouts King · listed 1 year ago

12m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJul 7, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Payouts King
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Jul 7, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) is a culinary school with campuses in New York, Los Angeles, and online presence. Founded in 1975, it offers professional certificate and associate degree programs in culinary arts, pastry & baking, hospitality management, and related fields. The school reports over 20,000 alumni and ranks among America's top culinary institutions.

Industry: Culinary Education
Founded: 1975

Attack summary

Severity: low — The leak post is truncated and contains only generic background information about ICE from its public website. No proof files, screenshots, or specific data categories are described. No ransom demand or data size is stated. This appears to be a listing/announcement without substantive evidence of compromise or data exfiltration.

The ransomware operator claims to have compromised ICE but provides no specifics on the attack method (encryption, exfiltration, or both) or data categories affected in the truncated leak post provided.

low

Original description

AI-summarised, not from the leak post

The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) is a reputable culinary school based in New York City, USA. Founded in 1975, ICE offers a wide range of professional certificate programs in culinary arts, pastry & baking, hospitality management, and culinary technology, among others. The Institute is known for its modern facilities, experienced faculty, and strong industry connections.

Sources

Victim siteice.edu
Leak posthttps:/payoutsgn7cy6uliwevdqspncjpfxpmzgirwl2au65la7rfs5x3qnbqd.onion/detail_post/chnYzXRfSeoWiVb49nEg

Source

Indexed 1 year 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 Payouts King

Payouts King Group. We are not RaaS. No affiliates are accepted. We use Tox messaging protocol. The group has been linked to 100 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 7, 2025; most recent post May 13, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: payoutsking.

Timeline of this disclosure

July 7, 2025Institute of Culinary Education listed by Payouts Kingon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Payouts King

Payouts King has been linked to 100 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Payouts King 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, Institute of Culinary Education is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Payouts King means Institute of Culinary Education 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 Payouts King'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.