Was Qeco/coeq hit by ransomware?

Qeco/coeq was listed by the Rhysida 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 Rhysida ransomware group?

Rhysida 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 Qeco/coeq breach?

Rhysida published data attributed to Qeco/coeq. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Qualifications Evaluation Council of Ontario

listed as Qeco/coeq · Claimed by Rhysida · listed 2 years ago

22m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedSep 10, 2024
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Rhysida
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Listed on leak site: Sep 10, 2024

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Qualifications Evaluation Council of Ontario (QECO) is a Canadian organization founded in 1969 by teacher unions (OECTA, ETFO, FWTAO, OPSTF, and AEFO) to provide objective evaluation and administration of teacher qualifications for salary determination purposes.

Industry: Professional Credentialing & Teacher Qualification Services
Founded: 1969

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Exfiltration of teacher qualification and credential data affecting educational professionals; regulated educational records in Ontario context; no proof files advertised in available post excerpt.

Rhysida claims to have exfiltrated data from QECO. The leak post provides no specific details about the scope of data compromised or the attack methodology.

medium

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Teacher qualification records
Educational credentials
Salary-related documentation

What the group claims

Qeco/coeq The Qualifications Evaluation Council of Ontario (confident-teacherQECO) was founded in 1969 by OECTA, ETFO (FWTAO & OPSTF at the time) and AEFO to provide, and to objectively administer, the evaluation of teacher qualifications for salary purposes.

Source

Indexed 2 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 Rhysida

Rhysida is a ransomware group that emerged in June 2023, operating with primarily financial motivations through targeted attacks against critical infrastructure and public sector organizations. The group's origin and potential state affiliations remain unclear, though they operate independently rather than as a traditional Ransomware-as-a-Service model, with limited public documentation regarding connections to other cybercriminal organizations. Rhysida employs double extortion tactics, typically gaining initial access through compromised VPN credentials and exploiting vulnerable public-facing applications before deploying their ransomware payload and exfiltrating sensitive data prior to encryption. The group has demonstrated a particular focus on healthcare and educational institutions, with notable attacks documented by CISA and FBI advisories highlighting their targeting of hospitals and school districts across multiple countries, resulting in significant operational disruptions to critical services. As of late 2024, Rhysida remains an active threat with continued operations targeting organizations primarily in the United States, Canada, and other Western nations, maintaining their focus on high-value sectors where operational disruption can maximize ransom payment likelihood. The group has been linked to 282 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on June 5, 2023; most recent post June 18, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

September 10, 2024Qeco/coeq listed by Rhysidaon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Rhysida

Rhysida has been linked to 282 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Rhysida dossier →

Sector and geography

Geographically, Qeco/coeq is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Rhysida means Qeco/coeq 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 Rhysida'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.