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Queensland University of Technology

listed as QUT · Claimed by Royal · listed 4 years ago

43m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedDec 31, 2022
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Royal
Status
Data leaked
Country
Australia
Sector
Education
Listed on leak site
Dec 31, 2022

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university founded in 1989, headquartered in Brisbane, Australia. It operates multiple campuses and faculties covering business, science, engineering, health, education, and the arts. QUT is one of Australia's largest universities, serving tens of thousands of students domestically and internationally.

Industry
Higher Education & Research
Address
2 George Street, Brisbane, Queensland 4000, Australia
Employees
5000+
Founded
1989

Attack summary

Severity: critical — QUT is a large public university holding regulated PII at scale including student records, staff personal data, and potentially research data involving sensitive or government-funded projects. The data_published status confirms exfiltration has occurred and data has been released.

The Royal ransomware group claims to have attacked QUT and published data, with the leak post indicating exfiltration of data related to the university's schools and faculties. The disclosed status indicates data has been published, suggesting confirmed exfiltration.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • University administrative records
  • Faculty and staff data
  • Student records
  • Research data
  • Business school documents

What the group claims

The Queensland University of Technology was founded in 1989 and is a research and course-based university which has schools and faculties in business

Sources

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 Royal

Royal is a financially motivated ransomware group that emerged in November 2022, quickly establishing itself as a significant threat with over 200 documented victims across multiple sectors. The group is believed to operate independently rather than as a ransomware-as-a-service model, though their exact country of origin remains unclear based on publicly available intelligence. Royal primarily gains initial access through phishing campaigns and exploitation of remote desktop protocols, subsequently deploying custom ransomware that encrypts victim files while exfiltrating sensitive data for double extortion tactics. The group has demonstrated a preference for targeting critical infrastructure and public services, with notable attacks against educational institutions, healthcare facilities, and government entities primarily in the United States, though they have also significantly impacted organizations across Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France. Their encryption methodology involves custom-built malware that systematically encrypts files while maintaining persistence on compromised networks. As of recent reporting from federal agencies including CISA and FBI advisories, Royal remains an active threat with ongoing campaigns targeting organizations across their preferred sectors, particularly focusing on entities with limited cybersecurity resources that may be more likely to pay ransom demands. The group has been linked to 211 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 4, 2022; most recent post July 19, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • December 31, 2022QUT listed by Royalon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Royal

Royal has been linked to 211 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Royal 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, QUT is reported in Australia, a country with 455 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Royal means QUT 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, ACSC (Australia), as required for your jurisdiction.
  • Monitor for the data appearing on Royal'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.