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,…
Category: Education Sector
Vulnerability: Est. Millions of Users of Popular Educational Platform Exposed to Account Takeover Threats And More
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…
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…