Skip to content
Cyber Threat
CTI Academy Sponsor CTI Academy
Ransomware victim Education

Santee School District Foundation

Listed by Thegentlemen on · organisation based in United States

santeesd.net

Disclosed
Oct 9, 2026
Leak-site listing date
Threat group
Thegentlemen
1,077 victims listed
Country
United States
#1 most targeted
Sector
Education

ThreatAI analysis

Compiled from this incident record and the threat intelligence profile for Thegentlemen. Figures and technique mappings are quoted from the source data, not inferred.

About Santee School District Foundation

Santee School District is a public K–8 school district founded in 1891 in Santee, California (San Diego County), operating 9 schools serving approximately 5,922–5,990 students (ages 2–14, including Pre-K/TK). It employs ~640–846 FTE staff (355 certificated teachers + 488 classified staff) under Superintendent Dr. Kristin Baranski, with a student-teacher ratio of ~23:1. Annual budget: ~$99.3M expenditures vs $90.7M revenue (2025-26), funded 77% by the state (LCFF), with ~$15,800–18,900 spent per student. Demographics: 49% White, 31% Hispanic, 20.5% special education, 37% socio-economically disadvantaged, 36–40 languages spoken. The district is known for its innovative Preschool–Grade 8 model and 1:1 iPad program, with strong SPED and Prop 28 arts funding. However, it faces serious financial headwinds: enrollment declining ~5% (projected 5,778 by 2026-27), expenditures exceeding revenue, reserve dropping from 16.5%

Source record: ransomware.live

About the Thegentlemen group

The Gentlemen is a RaaS group that emerged in July–August 2025, rapidly claiming over 320 victims across 17+ countries by offering affiliates a 90% revenue share, deploying a Go-based locker against Windows, Linux, NAS, and BSD systems; a compromised C2 server in 2026 revealed more than 1,570 linked victims. Thegentlemen has listed 922 victims since February 2023.

How Thegentlemen is documented to operate

Valid Accounts T1078 Stealth Persistence

Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network.

Mitigations: Application Developer Guidance, User Training, Password Policies, User Account Management, Privileged Account Management, Multi-factor Authentication

MITRE ATT&CK reference
External Remote Services T1133 Persistence Initial Access

Adversaries may leverage external-facing remote services to initially access and/or persist within a network. Remote services such as VPNs, Citrix, and other access mechanisms allow users to connect to internal enterprise network resources from external locations. There are often remote service gateways that manage connections and credential authentication for these services. Services such as Windows Remote Management and VNC can also be used externally. Access to Valid Accounts to use the service is often a requirement, which could be obtained through credential pharming or by obtaining the credentials from users after compromising the enterprise network.

Mitigations: Limit Access to Resource Over Network, Restrict Web-Based Content, Network Segmentation, Multi-factor Authentication, Disable or Remove Feature or Program

MITRE ATT&CK reference
Exploit Public-Facing Application T1190 Initial Access

Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network. The weakness in the system can be a software bug, a temporary glitch, or a misconfiguration. Exploited applications are often websites/web servers, but can also include databases (like SQL), standard services (like SMB or SSH), network device administration and management protocols (like SNMP and Smart Install), and any other system with Internet-accessible open sockets. On ESXi infrastructure, adversaries may exploit exposed OpenSLP services; they may alternatively exploit exposed VMware vCenter servers.

Mitigations: Vulnerability Scanning, Limit Access to Resource Over Network, Filter Network Traffic, Network Segmentation, Privileged Account Management, Application Isolation and Sandboxing

MITRE ATT&CK reference
Phishing T1566 Initial Access

Adversaries may send phishing messages to gain access to victim systems. All forms of phishing are electronically delivered social engineering. Phishing can be targeted, known as spearphishing. In spearphishing, a specific individual, company, or industry will be targeted by the adversary. More generally, adversaries can conduct non-targeted phishing, such as in mass malware spam campaigns. Adversaries may send victims emails containing malicious attachments or links, typically to execute malicious code on victim systems. Phishing may also be conducted via third-party services, like social media platforms.

Mitigations: Network Intrusion Prevention, Restrict Web-Based Content, User Training, Antivirus/Antimalware, Software Configuration, Audit

MITRE ATT&CK reference
Windows Management Instrumentation T1047 Execution

Adversaries may abuse Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to execute malicious commands and payloads. WMI is designed for programmers and is the infrastructure for management data and operations on Windows systems. WMI is an administration feature that provides a uniform environment to access Windows system components. The WMI service enables both local and remote access, though the latter is facilitated by Remote Services such as Distributed Component Object Model and Windows Remote Management. Remote WMI over DCOM operates using port 135, whereas WMI over WinRM operates over port 5985 when using HTTP and 5986 for HTTPS.

Mitigations: Execution Prevention, Behavior Prevention on Endpoint, User Account Management, Privileged Account Management

MITRE ATT&CK reference

MITRE ATT&CK techniques attributed to Thegentlemen across its recorded activity, not a finding about how Santee School District Foundation was reached.

Vulnerabilities Thegentlemen is recorded exploiting

6 of these 6 are in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, 4 of them recorded by CISA as used in ransomware campaigns. CVEs attributed to Thegentlemen across its reported activity. There is no indication that any of these was involved in the Santee School District Foundation incident — the source data does not record an entry point.

Incident analysis

Santee School District Foundation was listed by Thegentlemen ransomware, a group with 1,077 victims recorded in this database. The listing appeared on the group's leak site on October 9, 2026.

Santee School District Foundation is based in United States and operates in the Education sector. United States ranks #1 worldwide for ransomware disclosures, with 10,138 victims in this database.

Sector context. Educational institutions often have under-resourced IT security teams and hold large amounts of student and faculty personal data, making them attractive targets for ransomware groups.

Thegentlemen typically follows a double extortion model: data is exfiltrated from the victim's systems before files are encrypted, so the victim faces two demands at once — pay to restore access, and pay to keep stolen data unpublished. The leak site, where this listing appeared, is the lever for the second demand.

Source. Public leak-site disclosures aggregated via the ransomware.live API. The disclosure date is when the listing was published, which can differ from the date of compromise. This site does not publish or link to stolen data. Last updated .

Frequently asked questions

Was Santee School District Foundation attacked by ransomware?

Yes. Santee School District Foundation was listed as a victim of the Thegentlemen ransomware group on October 9, 2026. The organisation is based in United States and operates in the Education sector. The disclosure appeared on the group's dark web leak site.

Which ransomware group attacked Santee School District Foundation?

Santee School District Foundation was attacked by Thegentlemen ransomware. Thegentlemen is one of the most active ransomware groups, having claimed 1,077 victims globally. The group typically employs a double-extortion model: encrypting the victim's files and threatening to publish stolen data.

When did the Santee School District Foundation ransomware attack occur?

The ransomware attack on Santee School District Foundation was disclosed on October 9, 2026. This date reflects when the victim was published on the threat group's leak site, which may differ from the actual date of initial compromise.

What data was stolen in the Santee School District Foundation ransomware attack?

The specific data stolen from Santee School District Foundation has not been independently verified by this platform. Ransomware groups typically exfiltrate data before encrypting systems and use the threat of publication to pressure victims. As a Education organisation, Santee School District Foundation likely held student and faculty personal data and academic records.

How can organisations protect against Thegentlemen attacks?

To defend against Thegentlemen and similar threat actors, organisations should: maintain regular offline backups tested for restoration; implement network segmentation to limit lateral movement; deploy multi-factor authentication on all remote access; use endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools; conduct regular phishing and security awareness training; and monitor threat intelligence feeds for indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with active groups.