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Arizona State University (ASU)

Claimed by Direwolf · listed 11 hours ago

Today
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedAug 17, 2026
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Direwolf
Status
Data leaked
Country
United States
Sector
Education
Listed on leak site
Aug 17, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Arizona State University (ASU) is a comprehensive public research university with over 200,000 students enrolled across multiple campuses. It operates through three main enterprises: Academic Enterprise (traditional degree programs), Knowledge Enterprise (research and innovation), and Learning Enterprise (online and lifelong learning programs including EdPlus and CareerCatalyst). ASU is one of the largest public universities in the US.

Industry
Higher Education & Public Research University
Address
Tempe, Arizona, US (main campus)
Employees
10000-15000
Founded
1885

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Confirmed exfiltration of sensitive personally identifiable information at massive scale (680K+ student/learner contacts, 383K user accounts, payment records, identity verification data, educational records), combined with financial/payment data (826K payment transactions, PayPal ledgers) and authentication credentials (OAuth tokens, ASURITE usernames). This meets the threshold for critical due to regulated educational data, scale of exposure, and financial/payment system compromise.

The direwolf group claims to have exfiltrated 4.74 GB of data spanning 7,925 files, 4 databases, and ~5.5 million rows from ASU's Learning Enterprise and EdPlus platforms. The breach includes Salesforce CRM records (3.3M rows), DynamoDB backend systems (1.8M rows), Canvas LMS user directory (383K users), and Dropbox team files (3.72 GB), covering the period March 2017 through August 2026.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Payment transaction records (826K)
  • Learner/student contact records and profiles (680K+)
  • User directory with authentication credentials (383K Canvas LMS users)
  • PayPal invoice ledger and payment processing logs (195K)
  • Identity verification records for learners (127K)
  • Admin audit trails and activity logs (59K)
  • Partner invoicing and vendor contracts (4.3K files)
  • ASURITE ID and affiliate onboarding rosters (3K files)
  • Grade report exports and academic records (30K+)
  • User email mappings and OAuth tokens

What the group claims

Colleges,Universities

The leak post

captured from the group's site
```
{"article":{"id":91,"title":"Arizona State University (ASU)","content":"\u003ch2\u003e1. Overview\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n\u003cthead\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eItem\u003c/th\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eValue\u003c/th\u003e\n\u003c/tr\u003e\n\u003c/thead\u003e\n\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBusiness\u003c/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArizona State University — Learning Enterprise / EdPlus\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n\u003c/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTotal size\u003c/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e4.74 GB, 7,925 files/tables, 4 databases, ~5.5 million rows\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n\u003c/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eTime range\u003c/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2017-03 ~ 2026-08\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\n\u003c/tr\u003e\n\u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e2. Database Inventory\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n\u003cthead\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eDatabase\u003c/th\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eEngine\u003c/th\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eTables\u003c/th\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eRows\u003c/th\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eSize\u003c/th\u003e\n\u003cth\u003eCon…

Sources

Source

Indexed 11 hours 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 direwolf

Direwolf is a ransomware group that emerged in May 2025 with primarily financial motivations, having targeted 71 known victims across multiple sectors and geographic regions. The group's origin and potential affiliations remain undocumented in public threat intelligence reports, with no confirmed information regarding whether they operate as a Ransomware-as-a-Service model or as an independent entity. Their attack methodology and technical capabilities have not been extensively documented by major cybersecurity firms or government agencies, though their targeting patterns indicate a focus on manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and transportation/logistics sectors across Malaysia, the United States, Thailand, Singapore, and Taiwan. No major high-profile campaigns or significant ransomware demands have been publicly attributed to this group by CISA, FBI, or established security researchers such as Mandiant. Given the group's recent emergence and limited public documentation, their current operational status and long-term threat posture remain unclear, requiring continued monitoring by the cybersecurity community to establish a more comprehensive threat profile. The group has been linked to 96 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on May 27, 2025; most recent post August 17, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Also tracked as: DIRE WOLF.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • August 17, 2026Arizona State University (ASU) listed by direwolfon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by direwolf

direwolf has been linked to 96 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full direwolf dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 1,087 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Arizona State University (ASU) is reported in United States, a country with 3,162 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by direwolf means Arizona State University (ASU) 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 direwolf'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.