In the UK, educational institutions have been the target of many ransomware attacks. Due to the pandemic, there has been a heavy surge of reliance on using technology. Hackers are taking advantage of these circumstances and recent incidents have “observed more remote desktop protocols, unpatched software/hardware being utilized, and use of phishing emails to deploy ransomware”. They have also sabotaged any chances of backups or auditing devices that can be used to recover stolen data by encrypting virtual servers and using shell environments to deploy attacks. The complexity and scope of devices and environments colleges use makes it extremely difficult to monitor the system as a whole. The National Cyber Security Centre advises these institutions to have better vulnerability management and patching procedures, also to have safety protocols such as multi-factor authentication, enabling anti-virus, and phishing prevention training.
Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/universities-ransomware-attacks/
This was an interesting read. It seems like every article I read anymore ransomware groups are going after universities. This shouldn’t be a surprise however. There is such a movement these days about colleges being so overpriced an whether or not we even need to go to college to make a good living. It seems natural that hackers would exploit universities on those principles alone. Of course that fact that universities have so much equipment and devices to monitor and protect this is almost low hanging fruit for an experienced hacker group.