Was MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases hit by ransomware?

MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases was listed by the crypto24 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 crypto24 ransomware group?

crypto24 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 MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases breach?

crypto24 published data attributed to MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases

Claimed by Crypto24 · listed 6 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJan 24, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Crypto24
Status: Data leaked
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Healthcare
Listed on leak site: Jan 24, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases is a world-leading academic research centre established in 2017 within the Faculty of Brain Sciences at University College London (UCL). It conducts ground-breaking multidisciplinary research into prion diseases and other neurodegenerative disorders, encompassing genetics, structural biology, therapeutics, and clinical research. It also houses the National Prion Clinic, the national NHS referral centre for prion disease, operated under UCLH.

Industry: Biomedical Research & Neurodegenerative Disease
Address: UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
Founded: 2017

Attack summary

Severity: high — The target is a nationally significant biomedical research institution that also operates the UK's National Prion Clinic, meaning exfiltrated data could include sensitive patient health records (regulated NHS/medical data) and proprietary research data of significant public-health importance. The disclosed status is 'data_published', indicating exfiltration is claimed, though no specific proof files or data volume are confirmed in the truncated post.

The group crypto24 claims to have obtained data from MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases and states that full data will be released upon expiry of a countdown timer. The leak post does not specify whether encryption occurred, but data exfiltration is implied by the threat to publish.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Research data
Clinical/patient referral records (potential, via National Prion Clinic)
Academic and staff records
Internal institutional documents

What the group claims

According to our guidelines, full data will be released once the timer expires.

Sources

Victim sitewww.ucl.ac.uk/brain-sciences/prion

Source

Indexed 6 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 crypto24

Crypto24 is a recently emerged ransomware group first observed in April 2025, with a primary financial motivation evidenced by their targeting of high-value sectors across multiple geographic regions. The group's origin and affiliations remain unclear due to their recent emergence, though their targeting pattern suggests either independent operations or a new ransomware-as-a-service offering given the diverse geographic spread of their 43 documented victims. Their attack methodology and specific technical capabilities have not yet been thoroughly documented by major threat intelligence providers, though their targeting of technology, financial services, healthcare, and business services sectors indicates they likely employ common initial access vectors such as phishing or exploitation of public-facing applications to gain entry into victim networks. The group has demonstrated a preference for targeting organizations primarily in the United States while also conducting operations across Southeast Asia including Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, as well as extending their reach to Egypt, suggesting either a globally distributed affiliate network or opportunistic targeting based on vulnerable infrastructure discovery. Crypto24 remains active as of the latest available intelligence reporting, though given their recent emergence, comprehensive details about their specific tactics, techniques, and procedures await further analysis by established cybersecurity research organizations. The group has been linked to 49 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on April 8, 2025; most recent post May 18, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

January 24, 2026MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases listed by crypto24on the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by crypto24

crypto24 has been linked to 49 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full crypto24 dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Healthcare sector, which has 2,600 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases is reported in United Kingdom, a country with 1,217 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by crypto24 means MRC Prion Unit and Institute of Prion Diseases 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 crypto24'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.