Was Study Gate hit by ransomware?

Study Gate was listed by the killsec 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 killsec ransomware group?

killsec 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 Study Gate breach?

killsec published data attributed to Study Gate. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Study Gate

Claimed by Killsec · listed 10 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedSep 25, 2025
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Killsec
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Sep 25, 2025

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Study Gate (studygate.com) is a US-based online education platform operating in the tutoring and academic assistance sector. Based on its domain and sector classification, it connects students with tutors or academic resources. No additional verifiable details are available from the public site excerpt provided.

Industry: Online Education & Tutoring

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Data is marked as published (exfiltrated and released), but no specific data types, volume, or PII details are described for Study Gate in the leak post, preventing a higher severity classification.

KillSec claims to have published data associated with Study Gate; the disclosed status is 'data_published', indicating exfiltration and release of data. The leak post does not explicitly describe the Study Gate breach details, as the post text covers numerous other victims.

medium

What the group claims

N/A

The leak post

captured from the group's site

Founded in 1997, iCare Software, based in the United States, delivers innovative management solutions for childcare and afterschool programs. Serving childcare centers, preschools, afterschool programs, and multi-site operations, iCare automates critical tasks like attendance tracking, staff scheduling, tuition collection, and compliance reporting. Its unique offerings include AI-driven analytics, business intelligence dashboards, and CRM tools to boost enrollment and staff retention. With seamless data migration and robust back-end technology, iCare empowers providers to focus on quality care while streamlining operations and driving growth.
Cadorim simplifies money transfers to Mauritania, offering a secure, user-friendly platform for individuals and businesses. With a focus on speed, affordability, and accessibility, Cadorim enables seamless transactions in just three clicks, available around the clock. The company ensures maximum security for every transfer, provides competitive exchange rates with no fees, and processes transactions instantly. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, with operations in Nouakchott, Mauritania, Cadorim serves customers seeking reliable, cost-effectiv…

Sources

Source

Indexed 10 months 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 killsec

killsec is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in March 2024, operating with apparent financial motivations and demonstrating broad targeting across multiple geographic regions and industry sectors. The group's origin and potential state affiliations remain unclear due to limited public documentation from major threat intelligence sources, though their targeting pattern suggests opportunistic rather than geopolitically motivated operations. With 276 documented victims primarily concentrated in the United States, India, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Belgium, killsec appears to focus heavily on healthcare, technology, business services, and financial sectors, indicating either specific tooling designed for these environments or opportunistic targeting of organizations with valuable data and high pressure to restore operations quickly. Given the group's recent emergence and the lack of detailed technical analysis from established cybersecurity firms like Mandiant or law enforcement advisories from CISA or FBI, specific details about their attack methodology, initial access vectors, encryption techniques, and extortion tactics have not been publicly documented in authoritative sources. The group remains active as of current reporting, though the limited intelligence profile suggests they may be either a smaller operation or one that has not yet attracted significant attention from major threat intelligence organizations despite their substantial victim count. The group has been linked to 281 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on March 21, 2024; most recent post June 3, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

September 25, 2025Study Gate listed by killsecon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by killsec

killsec has been linked to 281 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full killsec 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, Study Gate is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by killsec means Study Gate 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 killsec'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.