A lot of universities have been attacked recently. Not all attacks are related to the Moodle vulnerability described in this report (e.g., all the Accellion-related university breaches), but the Moodle vulnerability worth noting and addressing if it applies to your uni. Chase Williams reports: At the beginning of October 2020, the Wizcase cyber research team, led by…
Category: Education Sector
Technological University of Dublin victim of ransomware attack
The following is the text of an email reportedly sent to TU students. It was submitted anonymously to DataBreaches.net: Dear Students, The Tallaght campus has been subjected to a significant ransomware attack on our entire on-site ICT systems. The disruption to services occurred early on Thursday morning and the cause later identified as a ransomware…
National College of Ireland hit by ransomware attack
The National College of Ireland disclosed a cyberattack on April 3. Here is their most recent update: 6th April Update: Please note that all classes, assessments and induction sessions planned from today Tuesday 6th until this Thursday 8th April inclusive have been postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date. The college will issue a…
Brown University hit by cyberattack, some systems still offline
Sergiu Gatlan reports: Brown University, a private US research university, had to disable systems and cut connections to the data center after suffering a cyberattack on Tuesday. The Ivy League school’s IT staff said the attack focused on the university’s Windows-based devices and asked faculty and staff to switch to computers running other operating systems,…
MO: Affton School District discloses ransomware attack; current and former employees impacted
On February 25, Affton School District notified its community about a ransomware attack. As part of their notification, they wrote: We do not believe any sensitive information has been accessed and no personal data, financial information, or grades have been found to be compromised. As a routine layer of protection, this information is stored on…
University of Maryland, Baltimore responds to Accellion breach
This week, a number of universities were added to CLOP threat actors’ dark web leak site. They appear to be linked to the Accellion breach in December and January. As a reminder, many of Accellion’s clients used a standalone server with Accellion’s software to transfer large files. The attack did not hit Accellion’s clients’ own…