Kathleen E. Dion of Robinson & Cole writes:
The FBI recently issued a Flash alert warning higher education institutions, k-12 schools, and seminaries about increasing numbers of ransomware attacks affecting the education industry. According to the warning, “[s]ince March 2020, the FBI has become aware of PYSA ransomware attacks against U.S. and foreign government entities, educational institutions, private companies, and the healthcare sector by unidentified cyber actors.”
Read more on The National Law Review. The flash alert can be found here.
DataBreaches.net had recently noted that not all schools listed as targets on PYSA’s site appear to have publicly disclosed. DataBreaches.net reached out to those public school districts last week but got no response as yet. This site will be following up in those cases. But it is important for all schools to take the alert seriously. While some ransomware operators have announced that they do not attack schools, other groups — like Conti and PYSA — do not hesitate to attack public school districts and may demand outrageous amounts of ransom.