# Bits Pilani university breached by DragonForce ransomware

Published: 2026-06-22 · Severity: high · Sectors: education
Canonical: https://vorant.io/reports/e1766ec2-b357-58c8-9955-da75b76c2f33/bits-pilani-university-breached-by-dragonforce-ransomware

> DragonForce ransomware gang claims breach of Bits Pilani university, exfiltrating employee and user credentials.

Bits Pilani, an Indian educational institution, has been compromised and claimed as a victim by the DragonForce ransomware operation. According to the public claim posted on ransomware.live, the breach resulted in the compromise of 1137 employee accounts, 3171 user accounts, and 1430 third-party employee credentials. The attackers also identified 166 records in the victim's external attack surface via DNS reconnaissance. The incident demonstrates typical ransomware gang tactics: credential harvesting, reconnaissance of internet-facing assets, and subsequent posting of breach claims to pressure victims. Defenders at educational institutions should review access logs for suspicious activity, enforce credential rotation for affected staff, and assess their own exposure.

## Mentioned in this report

- Threat actors: DragonForce
- Malware: DragonForce

2 detections for this report are in the app: the rules that match its indicators, the Sigma rules already converted to Splunk SPL, to Elastic where their fields map onto Elastic's integrations and to Microsoft Defender XDR KQL wherever Defender records the activity, and the YARA and Suricata. A new account gets three days of them free.

Source reporting: https://www.ransomware.live/id/Yml0cy1waWxhbmkuYWMuaW5AZHJhZ29uZm9yY2U=

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