criminals

Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro Cyberattacks have hit schools and colleges harder than any other industry during the pandemic. In 2020, including the costs of downtime, repairs and lost opportunities, the average ransomware attack cost educational institutions $2.73 million. That is $300,000 more than the next-highest sector – distributors and transportation companies. From Aug. 14 to Sept. 12, 2021, educational organizations were the target of over 5.8 million malware attacks, or 63% of all such attacks. Ransomware attacks alone impacted 1,681 U.S. schools, colleges and universities in 2020. Globally 44% of educational institutions were targeted by such attacks. I study cybercrime and cybersecurity. In my forthcoming book – set to be published in November 2021 –...

As COVID-19 cases in the U.S. continue to climb, government and higher education leaders have been focused on doing what it takes to protect campus communities from the global pandemic. But college and university leaders would be wise if they were just as vigilant about protecting their sensitive data from the cybercriminals who are becoming increasingly sophisticated about encrypting the colleges’ data and making the colleges pay a ransom to get it back. One of the latest examples is a ransomware attack that struck the University of California, San Francisco on June 1. In that case, cybercriminals used the NetWalker malware to encrypt data on the servers of the university’s school of medicine. This malware targets corporate networks and encrypts the data it finds on the attacked devices...

Tag: criminals

Pandemic Used By Cyber-Criminals To Attack Schools And Colleges

Ransomware criminals are targeting US universities