Was Kean University hit by ransomware?

Kean University was listed by the Qilin 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 Qilin ransomware group?

Qilin 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 Kean University breach?

Qilin published data attributed to Kean University. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Kean University

Claimed by Qilin · listed 5 days ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJul 24, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Qilin
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Jul 24, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Kean University is an R2 research institution and federal Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) located in Union, New Jersey, recognized as one of the most diverse universities in the nation. The university operates multiple campuses including locations in Jersey City and Wenzhou, China, and serves over 14,000 students across undergraduate and graduate programs.

Industry: Higher Education
Address: 1000 Morris Avenue, Union, New Jersey 07083, USA
Employees: 1000-5000
Founded: 1855

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Educational institution with likely student/faculty PII and operational systems compromised; disclosed status indicates data published, but absence of leak post details and no ransom demand limits ability to assess exposure scale. Institutional data breach at scale presents moderate to significant risk.

Qilin ransomware group claims to have attacked Kean University. The group post content is not provided ('N/A'), and no specific details are disclosed regarding the scope of encryption, data exfiltration, or nature of compromised data.

medium

What the group claims

N/A

Sources

Source

Indexed 5 days 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 Qilin

Qilin is a ransomware group that emerged in October 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations through targeted attacks against organizations across multiple sectors. The group appears to operate independently with limited public information available regarding their specific country of origin or affiliations to other ransomware families. Qilin employs double extortion tactics, typically exfiltrating sensitive data before deploying their encryption payload, though specific details about their initial access vectors and technical tools remain less documented in public security research. The group has demonstrated a broad targeting approach, with their 1645 known victims spanning multiple countries including the United States, France, Canada, United Kingdom, and Germany, with particular focus on manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and business services sectors. Based on available intelligence reporting, Qilin remains an active threat as of recent assessments, continuing their ransomware operations without significant reported law enforcement disruption. The group has been linked to 2,087 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 8, 2022; most recent post July 28, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

July 24, 2026Kean University listed by Qilinon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Qilin

Qilin has been linked to 2,087 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Qilin dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 1,085 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Kean University is reported in United States, a country with 3,138 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Qilin means Kean University 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 Qilin'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.