Was Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany hit by ransomware?

Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany was listed by the Nokoyawa 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 Nokoyawa ransomware group?

Nokoyawa 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 Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany breach?

Nokoyawa published data attributed to Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany

Claimed by Nokoyawa · listed 3 years ago

35m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 3, 2023
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Nokoyawa
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Non-Profit
Listed on leak site: Aug 3, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany is a Catholic ecclesiastical jurisdiction covering 14 full counties and part of a 15th county in Eastern New York State. Its mother church is the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany. The Diocese operates parishes, Catholic schools, cemeteries, Catholic Charities, and a range of ministerial and administrative offices across the region.

Industry: Religious Organization / Catholic Diocese
Address: 40 North Main Avenue, Albany, New York 12203, United States
Employees: 201-500
Founded: 1847

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published (confirmed exfiltration) from a religious organization that handles sensitive categories including child protection records, sacramental/personal records, donor PII, personnel files, and potentially records related to abuse reporting and tribunal proceedings, representing significant sensitive personal data at scale.

Nokoyawa claims to have compromised the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and has published data, though no ransom amount or specific data volume was stated in the post. The disclosed status indicates data has been published, implying exfiltration of diocesan records.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Diocesan administrative records
Employee and personnel records
Financial records
Sacramental and institutional records
Donor and stewardship records
Safe environment / child protection program records
Legal and tribunal records
Contact and communications data

What the group claims

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany covers 14 counties in Eastern New York including the south west corner of a 15th county. Its Mother Church is the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the city of Albany.

Sources

Victim sitercda.org
Leak posthttp://nokoleakb76znymx443veg4n6fytx6spck6pc7nkr4dvfuygpub6jsid.onion/leak/64cbc48df6451b16e05ad4a2

Source

Indexed 3 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 Nokoyawa

Nokoyawa is a ransomware group that emerged in December 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations and targeting organizations across multiple sectors including healthcare, non-profit, education, finance, and energy. The group has claimed at least 36 victims since its emergence, with attacks predominantly focused on the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, and the Philippines. While detailed technical analysis of Nokoyawa's operations remains limited in public reporting, the group appears to follow conventional ransomware tactics targeting critical infrastructure and essential services sectors. Their targeting of healthcare and educational institutions suggests they operate without the sector restrictions that some other ransomware groups have adopted. Notable campaigns include attacks across their preferred geographic regions, though specific high-profile incidents have not been extensively documented in public threat intelligence reporting from major security firms. As of current reporting, Nokoyawa appears to remain an active threat, though the group's relatively recent emergence means long-term operational patterns and potential law enforcement disruption efforts are still developing. The group has been linked to 36 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on December 9, 2022; most recent post August 4, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 3, 2023Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany listed by Nokoyawaon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Nokoyawa

Nokoyawa has been linked to 36 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Nokoyawa dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Non-Profit sector, which has 45 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Nokoyawa means Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany 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 Nokoyawa'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.