Disclosure context

About Nokoyawa

Nokoyawa is a ransomware group that emerged in December 2022, operating with primarily financial motivations and targeting organizations across multiple sectors including healthcare, non-profit, education, finance, and energy. The group has claimed at least 36 victims since its emergence, with attacks predominantly focused on the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, and the Philippines. While detailed technical analysis of Nokoyawa's operations remains limited in public reporting, the group appears to follow conventional ransomware tactics targeting critical infrastructure and essential services sectors. Their targeting of healthcare and educational institutions suggests they operate without the sector restrictions that some other ransomware groups have adopted. Notable campaigns include attacks across their preferred geographic regions, though specific high-profile incidents have not been extensively documented in public threat intelligence reporting from major security firms. As of current reporting, Nokoyawa appears to remain an active threat, though the group's relatively recent emergence means long-term operational patterns and potential law enforcement disruption efforts are still developing. The group has been linked to 36 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on December 9, 2022; most recent post October 8, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

May 23, 2023Gaston College listed by Nokoyawaon 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, Gaston College 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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Gaston College

Claimed by Nokoyawa · listed 3 years ago

36m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
May 23, 2023
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Nokoyawa
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Education
Listed on leak site: May 23, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Gaston College is a public community college located in Dallas, North Carolina, serving Gaston County and Lincoln County. It enrolls over 5,000 students per term in curriculum programs and approximately 16,000 students in continuing education programs. The college offers associate degree programs, workforce development, adult education, and university transfer pathways as part of the North Carolina Community College System.

Industry: Public Community College Education
Address: 201 Highway 321 South, Dallas, North Carolina 28034
Employees: 201-500
Founded: 1963

Attack summary

Severity: high — Data has been published (disclosed status: data_published) by the threat actor. An educational institution of this scale holds significant volumes of student PII, financial aid records, and employee data, which constitutes meaningful regulated/sensitive data exposure warranting a high severity rating.

The Nokoyawa ransomware group claims to have attacked Gaston College and has published data as disclosed, though no specific ransom amount or precise data volume was stated in the post. The nature of the data at risk likely includes student and employee records given the institution's profile.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Student records
Employee records
Financial aid information
Academic records
Institutional administrative data
Personal identifying information

What the group claims

Gaston College is a public community college in Dallas, North Carolina. Serving Gaston County and Lincoln County, Gaston College enrolls over 5,000 students each term in curriculum programs and about 16,000 students in continuing education programs. It is part of the North Carolina...

Sources

Victim sitegaston.edu/
Leak posthttp://nokoleakb76znymx443veg4n6fytx6spck6pc7nkr4dvfuygpub6jsid.onion/leak/6409b19bb8e220f8719002cb

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.