HELLO! FROM THE OFFICE OF PRIVACY & INFORMATION SECURITY
Welcome to our Privacy & Information Security Newsletter. In this edition, we look at ransomware attacks on educational institutions and how they might impact privacy and information security.
UNIVERSITY RANSOMWARE ATTACKS: HACKERS HIT COLORADO & MIAMI SCHOOLS
Cybercriminals recently used Clop ransomware to steal students’ grades and Social Security numbers from Accellion File Transfer Appliance (FTA) servers at the University of Colorado (CU) and University of Miami.
RANSOMWARE GANGS HAVE FOUND ANOTHER SET OF NEW TARGETS: SCHOOLS & UNIVERSITIES
The alert by the cybersecurity arm of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) says it has dealt with a significant increase in the number of ransomware attacks targeting education over the course of the past months.
PERSONAL DATA OF STUDENTS & STAFF LIKELY STOLEN IN RANSOMWARE ATTACKS, SAYS THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
The University of California is warning its students and staff about a possibility of a ransomware group having stolen and published their personal data and that of hundreds of other schools nationwide.
Recent cyberattacks on universities and schools have prompted a warning from the FBI’s Cyber Division. They warned that criminals using malicious software called PYSA ransomware are increasingly targeting education institutions.
In light of the surge in ransomware attacks against universities, institutions need to make asset management a much higher priority, removing obsolete systems and upgrading essential systems to the latest version to avoid exploits of unpatched vulnerabilities.
