Was The University of the West Indies hit by ransomware?

The University of the West Indies was listed by the Qilin ransomware operation (Trinidad & Tobago), 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 Qilin ransomware group?

Qilin 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 The University of the West Indies breach?

Qilin published data attributed to The University of the West Indies. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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The University of the West Indies

Claimed by Qilin · listed 3 hours ago

Today

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedAug 17, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Qilin
Status: Data leaked
Country: Trinidad & Tobago
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: Aug 17, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The University of the West Indies (UWI) is a multi-campus Caribbean university with five regional campuses and ten global centres across North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. It is a leading research institution focusing on small island states, climate action, innovation, and development justice.

Industry: Higher Education

Attack summary

Severity: medium — Disclosed status indicates data was published, but no leak post content, proof files, or specific data inventory details are available to assess. Educational institution with likely student and staff PII at risk, but without confirmation of exfiltration scope or proof, severity cannot be elevated to high.

The Qilin group claims to have attacked The University of the West Indies. No specific details about what data was exfiltrated or operational impact are provided in the available leak post excerpt.

medium

What the group claims

N/A

Screenshot of the leak post

Leak screenshot for The University of the West Indies

Sources

Source

Indexed 3 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 Qilin

Qilin is a ransomware group that emerged in October 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations through targeted attacks against organizations across multiple sectors. The group appears to operate independently with limited public information available regarding their specific country of origin or affiliations to other ransomware families. Qilin employs double extortion tactics, typically exfiltrating sensitive data before deploying their encryption payload, though specific details about their initial access vectors and technical tools remain less documented in public security research. The group has demonstrated a broad targeting approach, with their 1645 known victims spanning multiple countries including the United States, France, Canada, United Kingdom, and Germany, with particular focus on manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and business services sectors. Based on available intelligence reporting, Qilin remains an active threat as of recent assessments, continuing their ransomware operations without significant reported law enforcement disruption. The group has been linked to 2,195 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 8, 2022; most recent post August 17, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

August 17, 2026The University of the West Indies listed by Qilinon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Qilin

Qilin has been linked to 2,195 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Qilin 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, The University of the West Indies is reported in Trinidad & Tobago.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Qilin means The University of the West Indies 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.
Monitor for the data appearing on Qilin'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.