Disclosure context

About Karakurt

Karakurt is a ransomware group that emerged in December 2022, operating primarily as a data extortion threat actor with financial motivations rather than traditional file encryption. The group's origin and affiliations remain largely undocumented by major cybersecurity agencies, though their operational patterns suggest they function as an independent entity rather than a confirmed ransomware-as-a-service operation. Karakurt employs data theft and extortion tactics, focusing on exfiltrating sensitive information from victim networks before demanding payment under threat of public disclosure, representing a pure extortion model that bypasses traditional encryption-based ransomware approaches. The group has targeted 74 known victims across multiple sectors, with particular focus on healthcare, education, manufacturing, energy, and professional services organizations, primarily affecting entities in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, and India. Based on available reporting from established cybersecurity agencies and researchers, Karakurt appears to remain active as of recent assessments, though comprehensive intelligence on their specific attack vectors, tools, and major campaigns remains limited in publicly documented sources from CISA, FBI, and major security research organizations. The group has been linked to 74 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on December 11, 2022; most recent post September 22, 2023. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

March 20, 2023National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners listed by Karakurton the group's public leak site

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Healthcare sector, which has 1,779 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners 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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National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners

Claimed by Karakurt · listed 3 years ago

38m

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

Listed
Mar 20, 2023
Data leaked

At a glance

Group: Karakurt
Status: Data leaked
Country: United States
Sector: Healthcare
Listed on leak site: Mar 20, 2023

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME) is an independent, nongovernmental, nonprofit organization founded in 1934 and headquartered in the United States. It is the global leader in assessment for osteopathic medicine, administering the COMLEX-USA licensing examination series and other standardized assessments for osteopathic physicians and related health care professions. It serves osteopathic medical students, residents, colleges, state licensing boards, and partner organizations nationally and internationally.

Industry: Medical Licensing & Examination Services
Employees: 51-200
Founded: 1934

Attack summary

Severity: critical — NBOME holds sensitive PII for osteopathic medical students, residents, and physicians seeking licensure — including examination results, identity data, and potentially health-related professional records. A data_published status from Karakurt (a known exfiltration-focused group) against a medical licensing body constitutes confirmed exfiltration of regulated, sensitive PII at scale affecting a nationally significant healthcare credentialing organization.

Karakurt claims to have exfiltrated data from NBOME, with the disclosure status listed as 'data_published,' indicating stolen data has been released. No specific data volume or encryption activity was described in the leak post.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Candidate/examinee personal data
Medical licensing examination records
Organizational administrative files
Partner and client records
Employee records

What the group claims

The National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME) is an independent, nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization. Since their founding in 1934, they have been recognized for excellence in the national and international arenas of osteopathic physician testing and evaluation. NBOME produces a number of osteopathically distinct assessments and partner with other organizations on their assessment programs.

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.