A school district in Chicago released details on its cyber-insurance, from $6,661 in 2021 to $22,229 in 2022. This massive spike is due to an increasing number of threats, their severity, & potential for costly disruptions. A key factor leading to these cost increases is due to ransomware and also encrypting attacks. The theft of data can significantly compromise school networks, employees, & students. Ransomware attackers target these small school districts because they are rarely well-protected enough to deal with them, and because they typically have active insurance polices, they are attractive targets. For this school district in particular, the insurer is requiring a district-wide implementation of MFA. The attackers typically use compromised user credentials to target systems, so MFA, for the most part, is enough to stop attacks before they can even start. This also prevents attacker’s from being able to tweak with backups. District 87, the district discussed in the article, is one of many that will have to deal with this burden on its annual budget, and that also stretches to apply to organizations such as hospitals, non-profits, & local governments. Attackers see these targets as “soft”, and in order to reduce these new insurance premiums, it begins with increased user awareness
A school district in Chicago released details on its cyber-insurance, from $6,661 in 2021 to $22,229 in 2022. This massive spike is due to an increasing number of threats, their severity, & potential for costly disruptions. A key factor leading to these cost increases is due to ransomware and also encrypting attacks. The theft of data can significantly compromise school networks, employees, & students. Ransomware attackers target these small school districts because they are rarely well-protected enough to deal with them, and because they typically have active insurance polices, they are attractive targets. For this school district in particular, the insurer is requiring a district-wide implementation of MFA. The attackers typically use compromised user credentials to target systems, so MFA, for the most part, is enough to stop attacks before they can even start. This also prevents attacker’s from being able to tweak with backups. District 87, the district discussed in the article, is one of many that will have to deal with this burden on its annual budget, and that also stretches to apply to organizations such as hospitals, non-profits, & local governments. Attackers see these targets as “soft”, and in order to reduce these new insurance premiums, it begins with increased user awareness
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/school-district-reports-a-334-percent-hike-in-cybersecurity-insurance-costs/
-Alex Knoll