Disclosure context

About Interlock

Interlock is a recently emerged ransomware group that began operations in October 2024, primarily motivated by financial gain through extortion activities targeting organizations across multiple sectors. The group's country of origin and potential affiliations remain unclear given their recent emergence, with insufficient public documentation to determine whether they operate as an independent entity or under a Ransomware-as-a-Service model. Limited public information exists regarding their specific attack methodologies, initial access vectors, or encryption techniques, as major cybersecurity firms and law enforcement agencies have not yet published comprehensive technical analyses of their operations. Since beginning operations, Interlock has reportedly compromised approximately 100 victims, with their targeting primarily focused on organizations in English-speaking countries including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, as well as Italy, while demonstrating a preference for attacking education, manufacturing, healthcare, and public sector entities. The group remains active as of late 2024, though comprehensive threat intelligence profiles from established security research organizations have not yet been published due to the group's recent emergence in the threat landscape. The group has been linked to 109 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 13, 2024; most recent post May 11, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

February 13, 2026Archaeological Institute of America listed by Interlockon the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Education sector, which has 694 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Archaeological Institute of America is reported in United States, a country with 7,392 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

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.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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Archaeological Institute of America

Claimed by Interlock · listed 3 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Feb 13, 2026
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Interlock
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Feb 13, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is the oldest and largest archaeological organization in North America, founded in 1879 and headquartered in the United States. It serves over 200,000 members across 110 local societies in the US, Canada, and abroad. The AIA promotes archaeology through education, fieldwork grants, site preservation, publications (including ARCHAEOLOGY magazine and the American Journal of Archaeology), and an annual academic meeting.

Industry: Nonprofit Archaeological Education & Research
Employees: 51-200
Founded: 1879

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published (confirmed exfiltration), and the AIA holds PII for over 200,000 members, donor financial information, and grant applicant data, constituting significant scale exposure of personal and financial data for a nonprofit membership organization.

The Interlock ransomware group claims to have attacked the AIA and lists the disclosure status as data_published, indicating exfiltrated data has been released. No specific ransom demand or data size was stated in the post.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Member personal information
Donor records
Financial records
Employee/staff data
Grant and fellowship applicant data
Academic research data
Internal organizational documents

What the group claims

Founded in 1879, the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is the oldest and largest archaeological organization in North America. Today, the AIA has over 200,000 members and 110 local societies in the United States, Canada, and abroad.

Sources

Victim sitearchaeological.org
Leak posthttp://efgmr2vxwynrn7vlemidwf4ffwl4vljsb4eusaz3bplwk3apthpkpsad.onion/index.php?p=

Source

Indexed 3 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.