Tag Archive for: college

Separate ransomware attacks reported by Illinois county, college

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Illinois’ Henry County and Monmouth College have confirmed being impacted by separate ransomware attacks during the past week, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Several of Henry County’s systems were taken down following the discovery of a wide-reaching intrusion on March 18, which has prompted county officials to seek assistance from law enforcement and government cybersecurity agencies in investigating the incident amid ongoing efforts to restore affected systems.

Such an incident has already been claimed by the Medusa ransomware operation, which sought a $500,000 ransom that should be paid by Friday. Toyota Financial Services, Moneris, and Water For People were some of the ransomware gang’s most recent targets.

Meanwhile, Monmouth College disclosed in filings with the Maine and California Offices of the Attorneys General that its systems had been infiltrated in a December ransomware attack, which resulted in the compromise of data belonging to 44,737 individuals, including their ID cards and driver’s licenses.

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Greensboro College Experiences Bad Data Security Breach

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Hackers who went after Greensboro College got some of the most valuable personal information hackers can get ­– Social Security numbers.

And, though the scope of the attack still isn’t completely clear, one sign that it was quite vast is that some of the stolen information involved a teacher who taught there a quarter of a century ago and has had no other relationship with the university since.

Greensboro College is now in the process of warning those affected by the security breach that happened in mid-2023.

Data theft victims have just received a letter stating: “Greensboro College is writing to notify you of a recent event that may affect the privacy of certain information related to you. This notice provides information about the event, our response, and resources available that we are offering at no cost to you to help protect your information from possible misuse, should you feel it appropriate to do so.”

The “What Happened?” section of the letter states that the college detected “potentially malicious activity” on some of its computer systems.

Once the college discovered the breach, college officials notified law enforcement agencies, and conducted an internal investigation to determine the extent of the problem. That investigation found that some computer systems were subject to unauthorized access between August 10, 2023 and August 21, 2023.

Some of the data stolen includes names and Social Security numbers.

The college completed its study in early February of 2024 and began sending out notices.

Greensboro College stated that it is now, “instituting additional technical safeguards and policies and procedures,” and added, “Our response to this event also included prompt reporting to law enforcement and notification to relevant state and federal regulators.”

Greensboro College is offering those affected access to 24 months of credit monitoring and identity theft protection services at no cost.

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Clackamas Community College recovering after ‘ransomware attack’

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PORTLAND, Ore. — After a cyberattack closed Clackamas Community College for nearly a week, students are back in class. 

The college says they became aware of an online issue on Jan. 19, and students were unable to log in to the school’s online portal, Moodle.

“I see that Moodle is down; I was like, ‘Oh shoot, I can’t get my homework’,” first-year student Kainoa Medina said. “Then I was like, ‘Let me check my information,’ couldn’t access it and I was like, ‘This is a really big problem.”

About 16,000 students and 900 faculty members were locked out of the college’s network. A spokesperson for Clackamas Community College called it an “attempted ransomware attack,” and CCC President Tim Cook described it as “a significant cybersecurity incident.”

While the school was able to isolate some systems from the network to protect them, they’re still investigating exactly what happened and the extent of the impact. 

“Usually, this is something like ransomware. A piece of software gets in, and it ends up taking hold of part of their environment or most of it,” said Patrick Miller, CEO of Ampere Industrial Security. “Especially with schools, municipalities, it’s actually more common than you’d think.”

Miller said an attack like this one usually originates out of the U.S., and often times, the hackers will ask for a ransom. 

“It’s usually international actors that do this. It’s usually international organized crime rings,” Miller explained.

CCC did not say whether those bad actors that orchestrated the attack asked for money or if anyone’s personal information was compromised, but that’s something Medina is worried about.

“It was sinking in; it was like, ‘Okay, well my information is probably stolen’,” Medina said. “This is very unfortunate, and yes, I was very scared.”

Miller says it can be difficult for any organization to defend against ransomware. 

“The bad guys have to be right just once. They get one person to click on a link; they’ve got to get one person to open the wrong email,” Miller said. “It’s more and more difficult by the day to actually discern whether these things are real or not.”

Oregon City Police told KGW their officers responded to the incident initially, but that…

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Essential Email and Internet Safety Tips for College Students

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Reading Time: 5 min

Your email is one of the most important digital assets and identities because it helps you create accounts on other platforms. It is also the central internet communication tool in academic institutions and colleges. According to an analysis by Sprinto, cyber attacks in educational institutions rose by 75% in the last year. Keeping your emails away from hackers will reduce your threat exposure on many other digital platforms, adding a layer of security in the face of surging cyber attacks.

Securing your email requires you to pay attention to your passwords, gadgets, and the links you engage with. The places you share the email will also either expose you or keep you away from danger. Here are critical email safety insights every student should consider when in college and beyond. But why are college students frequently targeted by identity thieves?

Why are College Students Frequently Targeted by Identity Thieves?

College represents a perfect storm for cybercriminals. Students juggle countless logins across sites and apps. Most use one or two gadgets for everything. From social to financial accounts, it’s all there. That spells out vulnerability.

Many also embrace info-sharing in this always-on era. Digital oversharing, though, hands data to hackers. Details like addresses, numbers, security answers—a fraudster’s dream.

There’s perception too. Cybercrooks assume students have casual security. Weak vigilance or underusing protections like two-factor authentication, for example. So students appear to be an easy bullseye.

The sheer volume doesn’t help either. Colleges have tens of thousands of potential targets all in one place. For identity thieves, it’s open season on campus.

PowerDMARC’s report on the state of email authentication adoption found that 48.1% of the analyzed .edu domains were not protected against email abuse. Furthermore, 26.4% of the analyzed .edu domains didn’t even have preliminary authentication protocols like SPF implemented. This proved that several well-known organizations in academia still lack basic defenses against email impersonation and abuse, reiterating the need for email safety awareness among educational…

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