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Ruskin College

Claimed by Beast · listed 6 months ago

$23.83
Ransom
demanded
5m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedJan 29, 2026
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Beast
Status
Data leaked
Country
United Kingdom
Sector
Education
Listed on leak site
Jan 29, 2026
Ransom demanded
$23.83

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Ruskin College Oxford is an adult education college located in Oxford, United Kingdom, and is part of the University of West London. It offers accessible, career-focused learning including undergraduate degree programmes, Access to Higher Education diplomas, ESOL, functional skills, and short courses, with a focus on supporting adults without traditional academic backgrounds. The college operates with small class sizes and personalised student support.

Industry
Further & Higher Education (Adult Learning)
Address
Ruskin College, Walton Street, Oxford, OX1 2HE, United Kingdom
Employees
51-200
Founded
1899

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published by the threat actor, confirming exfiltration. An educational institution holds significant volumes of student and staff PII (including potentially vulnerable adult learners), financial records, and academic data, making published exfiltration a high-severity incident.

The BEAST ransomware group claims to have attacked Ruskin College Oxford and has published data (disclosed status: data_published), indicating exfiltration of college data; no ransom amount or specific data volume was stated in the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Student records
  • Staff personal data
  • Academic records
  • Administrative documents
  • Financial records
  • Enrolment and application data

What the group claims

Ruskin College Oxford provides accessible adult learning opportunities for individuals of all ages and backgrounds, offering a variety of courses including degree programs, access courses, and short courses. The college focuses on career-oriented education, ensuring personalized support and small class sizes to help students achieve their academic and professional goals. As part of the University of West London, Ruskin College guarantees high-quality teaching and extensive student support. Their target clients include adults seeking further education, employment readiness, or personal development

The leak post

captured from the group's site
[ 2fORM Architecture specializes in innovative sustainable architecture, offering design services for residential, commercial, and interior projects. Their portfolio includes a diverse range of developments, such as multi-family housing, health care facilities, and various remodels. The company aims to serve clients in the Pacific Northwest, including individual homeowners, businesses, and institutions. With a commitment to sustainability and creativity, 2fORM Architecture enhances the built environment through thoughtful design. ](http://beast6azu4f7fxjakiayhnssybibsgjnmy77a6duufqw5afjzfjhzuqd.onion/card/2form_architecture)[ ACMARK s r o is a company that operates in the Repair Services industry. It employs 10to19 people and has 1Mto5M of revenue. The company is headquartered in Brno, South Moravian, Czech Republic. ](http://beast6azu4f7fxjakiayhnssybibsgjnmy77a6duufqw5afjzfjhzuqd.onion/card/acmark)[ AJU Pharm Co., Ltd. is a prominent South Korean total healthcare company founded in 1953. For over 70 years, it has evolved from a manufacturer of raw materials into a global pharmaceutical group specializing in prescription drugs, medical devices, and health supplements P U B L I S H…

Screenshot of the leak post

Leak screenshot for Ruskin College

Sources

Source

Indexed 6 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 beast

The Beast ransomware group is a relatively new threat actor that emerged in July 2025, operating with apparent financial motivations through their ransomware campaigns. With limited public documentation available from major security agencies, the group has demonstrated activity primarily targeting victims across the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, South Korea, and Argentina, accumulating approximately 65 known victims since their emergence. Their targeting pattern shows a focus on healthcare organizations, manufacturing companies, educational institutions, and construction firms, suggesting an opportunistic approach rather than highly specialized sector expertise. The group's recent emergence means there is insufficient public intelligence from CISA, FBI, Mandiant, or other established security researchers regarding their specific attack methodologies, initial access vectors, or technical capabilities. Given the timeline of their first observation in mid-2025, Beast represents an active and emerging threat with their current operational status remaining unclear due to limited threat intelligence reporting from authoritative sources. The group has been linked to 104 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 29, 2025; most recent post June 11, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • January 29, 2026Ruskin College listed by beaston the group's public leak site
Ransom demanded
$23.83

Other recent disclosures by beast

beast has been linked to 104 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full beast 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, Ruskin College is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 1,217 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by beast means Ruskin College 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, NCSC (United Kingdom), as required for your jurisdiction.
  • Monitor for the data appearing on beast'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.