Was SCAD EDU hit by ransomware?

SCAD EDU was listed by the Avoslocker 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 Avoslocker ransomware group?

Avoslocker 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 SCAD EDU breach?

Avoslocker published data attributed to SCAD EDU. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD)

listed as SCAD EDU · Claimed by Avoslocker · listed 4 years ago

43m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedDec 26, 2022
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Avoslocker
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Dec 26, 2022

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private nonprofit art school headquartered in Savannah, Georgia, with additional campuses in Atlanta, Georgia, Lacoste, France, and an online degree program. Founded in 1978, SCAD enrolls more than 14,000 students, with international students comprising up to 17 percent of the student body. The university offers degrees in programs focused on art and design disciplines and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

Industry: Higher Education – Art & Design
Address: 342 Bull Street, Savannah, Georgia 31401, United States
Founded: 1978

Attack summary

Severity: high — Confirmed exfiltration of PII (email addresses and phone numbers) affecting a student/staff population exceeding 14,000 individuals, with a database dump and full file listing published as proof samples and a threatened full release.

AvosLocker claims to have exfiltrated at least one database along with a full file listing and samples of all email addresses and phone numbers, threatening to publish the complete dataset within two weeks of the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Database dump
File listing
Email addresses
Phone numbers

The group's post references roughly 1 proof file.

What the group claims

1 database, filelist, all email/phone leaked in sample! Everything leak in 2 week Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private nonprofit art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. Founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the United States, the university now operates two locations in Georgia, a degree-granting online education program, and a study abroad location in Lacoste, France. The university enrolls more than 14,000 students from across the United States and around the world with international students comprising up to 17 percent of the student population.[3] SCAD is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and other professional accrediting bodies.

Source

Indexed 4 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 Avoslocker

**Overview**: AvosLocker is a financially motivated ransomware group that emerged in June 2021, operating as both a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform and conducting direct attacks against organizations worldwide. The group has demonstrated sophisticated capabilities and has targeted over 70 victims across multiple critical sectors. **Origin & Affiliation**: While the exact country of origin remains unclear, AvosLocker operates as a RaaS model, recruiting affiliates to conduct attacks using their ransomware payload and infrastructure. The group has shown no clear ties to state-sponsored activities, appearing to be purely profit-driven cybercriminals. **Attack Methodology**: AvosLocker typically gains initial access through compromised Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) credentials, VPN vulnerabilities, and phishing campaigns, subsequently deploying tools like Cobalt Strike for lateral movement and persistence. The group employs double extortion tactics, stealing sensitive data before encrypting systems and threatening to publish the information on their leak site if ransom demands are not met. Their ransomware uses strong encryption algorithms and includes capabilities to terminate security processes and delete shadow copies to prevent recovery. **Notable Campaigns**: The group has particularly targeted critical infrastructure sectors including education, manufacturing, finance, healthcare, and transportation, with significant attacks reported against organizations in the United States, Germany, Singapore, Canada, and France. CISA and FBI have issued joint advisories warning about AvosLocker's targeting of critical infrastructure, highlighting the group's impact on essential services. **Current Status**: As of recent threat intelligence reporting, AvosLocker remains active, continuing to recruit affiliates and conduct ransomware operations against organizations globally. The group has been linked to 70 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 13, 2021; most recent post February 11, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Also tracked as: Avos.

Timeline of this disclosure

December 26, 2022SCAD EDU listed by Avoslockeron the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Avoslocker

Avoslocker has been linked to 70 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Avoslocker 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, SCAD EDU is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Avoslocker means SCAD EDU 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 Avoslocker'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.