Was Knottingham Trent University hit by ransomware?

Knottingham Trent University was listed by the ShadowByt3$ ransomware operation (United Kingdom), 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 ShadowByt3$ ransomware group?

ShadowByt3$ 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 Knottingham Trent University breach?

ShadowByt3$ published data attributed to Knottingham Trent University. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Knottingham Trent University

Claimed by ShadowByt3$ · listed 2 hours ago

Today

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 25, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: ShadowByt3$
Status: Data leaked
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Aug 25, 2026

What the group claims

We breached Knottingham trent University on August 19th 2026 by gaining access through webapps.ntu.ac.uk. We alerted the university which they know they have been breached they locked out are access after stealing the following below High-Risk Sensitive PII - Passport Numbers & Details: Stolen via the raw PDF copies of the applicants' physical passports - Dates of Birth: Specifically exposed on the main data profile screen - Nationalities & Countries of Birth: Confirmed via the legal passport logs and the registration metadata fields. Contact & Location PII - Full Legal Names: Animesh Shukla and Abhinand Unnikrishnan - Personal Email Addresses: Exposed via the portal login view (`[email protected]`). - Mobile Phone Numbers: Explicitly collected on the dashboard contact view (`7080809422`). - Permanent & Correspondence Home Addresses: Complete street-level addresses mapping out exact house numbers, apartment complexes, districts, and postal ZIP codes spanning across Lucknow (226001) and Delhi (110024). Academic & Professional History PII - While non-sensitive on its own, hackers use this deeply personal context to write highly convincing scam letters - Complete Academic History: Stolen via the raw transcript files (`Degree Transcript.pdf` `10TH`, and `12TH` grade completion papers), showing exact grade percentages, modules studied, and prior school names. - Employment & Professional History: Stolen directly out of the `CV.pdf` file, mapping out their previous job titles and career timelines - Professional Reference Names: Stolen via the Letters of Recommendation (`LOR.pdf`), which reveal the names, titles, and institutions of the professors or employers who recommended them. mirror 1: https://anonfilesnew.com/s/FXB5-I_XtWl mirror 2: https://pixeldrain.com/u/XXWv2geH This is a warning to all companies to comply it's that easy and simple. If you don't we will leak you and ruin your reputation and make sure that everyone abuses your companies data.

Sources

Victim sitentu.ac.uk
Leak posthttps://transfer.it/t/dqbRpEkBmbxB

Source

Indexed 2 hours 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 ShadowByt3$

ShadowByt3$ is an emerging ransomware group that was first observed in February 2026, appearing to be financially motivated based on its ransomware operations. The group's country of origin and any potential affiliations with other cybercriminal organizations remain unknown due to limited intelligence available on this newly identified threat actor. Given the minimal public documentation available, the group's attack methodology, tools, and operational tactics have not been sufficiently analyzed or reported by major cybersecurity firms or government agencies. No notable campaigns, high-profile victims, or significant ransoms have been publicly documented by CISA, FBI, Mandiant, or other reputable security researchers, with only one known victim reported to date and no specific sector targeting patterns identified. The current operational status of ShadowByt3$ remains unclear due to the limited intelligence available on this recently emerged and relatively unknown ransomware operation. The group has been linked to 21 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on February 25, 2026; most recent post August 25, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 25, 2026Knottingham Trent University listed by ShadowByt3$on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by ShadowByt3$

ShadowByt3$ has been linked to 21 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full ShadowByt3$ dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 1,087 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Knottingham Trent University is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 377 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by ShadowByt3$ means Knottingham Trent 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, NCSC (United Kingdom), as required for your jurisdiction.
Monitor for the data appearing on ShadowByt3$'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.