Was Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata hit by ransomware?

Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata was listed by the nova ransomware operation (Argentina), 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 nova ransomware group?

nova 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 Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata breach?

nova published data attributed to Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata

Claimed by Nova · listed 9 days ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJul 20, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Nova
Status: Data leaked
Country: Argentina
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Jul 20, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata is an Argentine public university offering undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs, vocational training, and distance education. The institution focuses on research, innovation, and cultural activities while promoting sustainability and social responsibility through scholarships and international partnerships.

Industry: Higher Education

Attack summary

Severity: high — Public university with student and faculty personal information at scale; exfiltration confirmed by group offering data samples to contact party. Educational institutions hold sensitive PII and research data; exposure affects hundreds or thousands of individuals.

Nova claims to have exfiltrated data from the university and is offering samples to demonstrate proof of access. The specific data categories targeted are not detailed in the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Student records
Faculty information
Administrative files
Research data

What the group claims

The Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata offers a wide range of academic programs, including undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, vocational training, and distance education. It serves students, faculty, and the broader community by promoting research, innovation, and cultural activities. The university is committed to sustainability and social responsibility, providing various scholarships and support for international mobility. Additionally, it engages in partnerships and projects that enhance academic and technological transfer, contributing to local and global knowledge - Nova Provide tree and samples from stolen data to the company when its get in touch with support department.

Sources

Leak posthttp://pifk3xu3vad6cuxsjll4qjomyaaaoyvnyqppro75pazadzctrrvpdnyd.onion/universidad-nacional-de-mar-del-plata

Source

Indexed 9 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 nova

Based on the limited available data, Nova is a recently emerged ransomware operation first observed in April 2025 with an apparent financial motivation, having targeted approximately 95 victims in its brief operational period. The group's origin and potential affiliations remain undocumented by major security firms, though their targeting pattern suggests a broad opportunistic approach rather than geopolitically motivated attacks. Nova's attack methodology and specific technical capabilities have not been publicly detailed by established threat intelligence sources, though their victim distribution across the United States, France, Brazil, Singapore, and the Netherlands indicates either automated widespread targeting or access to diverse initial compromise vectors. The group has demonstrated a preference for targeting healthcare, technology, manufacturing, and education sectors, suggesting they may focus on organizations with critical operational dependencies that increase pressure for ransom payment. Given the group's recent emergence and limited public documentation by major security researchers, Nova's current operational status, organizational structure, and long-term threat trajectory remain largely uncharacterized in established threat intelligence reporting. The group has been linked to 203 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on April 28, 2025; most recent post July 25, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

July 20, 2026Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata listed by novaon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by nova

nova has been linked to 203 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full nova 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, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata is reported in Argentina, a country with 30 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by nova means Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata 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.
Monitor for the data appearing on nova'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.