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Tulane University

Claimed by Meow · listed 3 years ago

31m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedDec 13, 2023
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Meow
Status
Data leaked
Country
United States
Sector
Education
Listed on leak site
Dec 13, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Tulane University is a private research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, offering over 75 undergraduate majors and minors alongside graduate and professional programs. The university emphasizes interdisciplinary education, health and bioinnovation, environmental resilience, and global studies through numerous research centers and institutes. It is one of the leading research and educational institutions in the southern United States.

Industry
Higher Education & Research
Address
6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118
Employees
1001-5000
Founded
1834

Attack summary

Severity: high — Tulane is a large research university holding regulated PII at scale including student records (likely FERPA-protected), employee data, health/bioinnovation research data, and financial aid information; data_published status confirms exfiltration and publication of sensitive institutional data.

The Meow ransomware group claims to have compromised Tulane University and has published data, though the leak post preview does not specify whether encryption, exfiltration, or both occurred, nor does it detail the volume or nature of the stolen data.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • University records
  • Student data
  • Faculty and staff information
  • Research data
  • Financial aid records

What the group claims

PREVIEW

Sources

Source

Indexed 3 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 Meow

Meow is a relatively new ransomware group that emerged in November 2023, primarily motivated by financial gain through extortion activities targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group has compromised at least 145 known victims in a short operational timeframe, demonstrating rapid scaling of their criminal enterprise. Based on their targeting patterns, Meow appears to focus heavily on English-speaking countries, with the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada representing their primary victim base, though they have also expanded operations to include targets in Italy and Colombia. The group shows a preference for attacking business services organizations, manufacturing companies, healthcare institutions, and agriculture and food production entities, suggesting they may employ broad-spectrum targeting rather than highly specialized sector focus. Their emergence in late 2023 and the significant victim count achieved in a relatively short period indicates either a sophisticated operation with experienced operators or potential links to existing ransomware ecosystems, though specific details about their attack methodology, initial access vectors, encryption techniques, or data exfiltration practices have not been extensively documented by major threat intelligence sources. Given the recent timeline of their emergence and limited public reporting from established security researchers, detailed technical analysis of their tools, tactics, and procedures remains sparse. The group appears to remain active as of current reporting, though comprehensive law enforcement actions or major disruption efforts have not been publicly documented. The group has been linked to 145 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on November 24, 2023; most recent post November 19, 2024. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • December 13, 2023Tulane University listed by Meowon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Meow

Meow has been linked to 145 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Meow 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, Tulane University is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Meow means Tulane 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, CISA (United States), as required for your jurisdiction.
  • Monitor for the data appearing on Meow'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.