Tag Archive for: SCHOOLS.

Why schools are easy targets for ransomware attacks, and what to do about it

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Why schools are easy targets for ransomware attacks, and what to do about it

The education sector experienced the highest rate of ransomware attacks in 2022, according to new research from a leading global cybersecurity company.

The State of Ransomware in Education 2023 report, released by Sophos, found 80% of K-12 schools reported they were targets of these types of attacks – a worrying increase from 56% in 2021. Additionally, the education sector reported one of the highest rates of ransom payment with nearly half (47%) of schools paying the ransom.

However, paying the ransom significantly increased recovery costs. The average recovery costs (excluding any ransoms paid) for schools were $2.18m when paying the ransom versus $1.37m when not paying.

Paying the ransom also lengthened recovery times for victims. For schools, 63% of those that used backups recovered within a month versus just 59% of those that paid the ransom.

“Although not a particularly financially rewarding target for cybercriminals, K-12 schools hold a plethora of valuable data such as student addresses, parent emails and bank account details and therefore are becoming increasingly targeted,” Aaron Bugal, Field CTO APJ, at Sophos told The Educator.

“Furthermore, schools will have thousands of dispersed endpoints to protect, often being those of cyber unaware students and even teachers.”

Bugal said this presents a “dream attack surface” for cybercriminals, because if students and staff aren’t being taught how to properly identify threats and be cyber aware, one weak link is all it takes to give hackers the opportunity to secure access to all of school system’s data.

So, what can principals do to respond to this threat?

“Staying ahead of cyber criminals is integral to maintaining a performant educational ecosystem,” Bugal said.

“Schools must focus on both cybersecurity education and implement the right processes and technical controls to effect a positive security outcome.”

With cyberthreats continuing to grow in both volume and complexity, Bugal says most schools shouldn’t be attempting to manage cybersecurity on their own.

“Instead they should consider investing in cybersecurity as a…

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Kids’ intimate files — including suicide attempts — are being put online after ransomware gangs hack schools: report

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The confidential documents stolen from schools and dumped online by ransomware gangs are raw, intimate and graphic.

They describe student sexual assaults, psychiatric hospitalizations, abusive parents, truancy — even suicide attempts.

“Please do something,” begged a student in one leaked file, recalling the trauma of continually bumping into an ex-abuser at a school in Minneapolis.

Other victims talked about wetting the bed or crying themselves to sleep.

Complete sexual assault case folios containing these details were among more than 300,000 files dumped online in March after the 36,000-student Minneapolis Public Schools refused to pay a $1 million ransom.

Other exposed data included medical records, discrimination complaints, Social Security numbers and contact information of district employees.

Rich in digitized data, the nation’s schools are prime targets for far-flung criminal hackers, who are assiduously locating and scooping up sensitive files that not long ago were committed to paper in locked cabinets. “In this case, everybody has a key,” said cybersecurity expert Ian Coldwater, whose son attends a Minneapolis high school.

Often strapped for cash, districts are grossly ill-equipped not just to defend themselves but to respond diligently and transparently when attacked, especially as they struggle to help kids catch up from the pandemic and grapple with shrinking budgets.

Months after the Minneapolis attack, administrators have not delivered on their promise to inform individual victims.


Ransomware gangs dumped 300,000 files, including medical record and Social Security numbers, from Minneapolis Public Schools.
Ransomware gangs dumped 300,000 files, including medical record and Social Security numbers, from Minneapolis Public Schools.
AP

Unlike for hospitals, no federal law exists to require this notification from schools.

The Associated Press reached families of six students whose sexual assault case files were exposed.

The message from a reporter was the first time anyone had alerted them.

“Truth is, they didn’t notify us about anything,” said a mother whose son’s case file has 80 documents.

Even when schools catch a ransomware attack in progress, the data are typically already gone.

That was what Los…

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Hacking Attempts in the Education Sector Are On the Rise. Here’s How Schools Can Stay Safe from Cyberattacks.

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Educational institutions are facing a surge in cyberattacks targeting IoT (Internet of Things) devices like IP cameras, network video recorders, and routers, according to recent data published by Check Point Research. In fact, the cybersecurity solutions provider states that there has been a 34% increase in cyberattacks when compared to last year. How can schools and other organizations stay safe from hacking attempts in the education sector?

Experts believe that schools and universities need to focus on vulnerability management. Basically, this process involves the continuous identification and resolution of potential weaknesses or flaws, such as bugs and firewall misconfigurations. These give hackers a chance to steal data and cause harm. Even something as simple as regularly updating software and installing antivirus solutions can help prevent unauthorized access to confidential data like the addresses and medical records of students.

BlueSteel Cybersecurity CEO Ali Allage, who has two decades of experience in leading tech companies, tells us how schools can stay safe from cyberattacks and institute better strategies against hacking attempts in the education sector.

 

Ali’s Thoughts

“So, my thoughts on the topic of the education sector seeing an increase in attacks is not surprising just because of how much the education system had to transition [during] and after covid on technology use. There’s been a lot of quick adoption without necessarily having the right frameworks in order to support remote education or adopting some of the technologies needed for today’s educational world. So, part of that is not having a grasp on vulnerability management, and this is using these tiny devices, like I mentioned [IoT devices] like cameras, [some] of these hardware pieces that sometimes get overlooked on firmware. Making sure that the software that goes to run the hardware are up to date. And, so we’ll see a lot in terms of vulnerability management not necessarily getting the love or attention it needs, or you’ll see that they’re identifying some of the issues — It’s just that the breadth of items that need to be addressed are pretty large and it could be…

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‘Ransomware cult’ claims to have hacked two local schools

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MATTHEWS, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – Finances, legal documents, QuickBooks.

Folders containing sensitive information were published on Twitter by a group claiming to have hacked into Socrates Academy in Matthews and Movement School.

The hackers, which Queen City News has decided not to name, first posted proof of their hack, promising more to come if school officials didn’t cooperate.

“I saw a lot of things I would not want to see if one of my client’s data was breached, like QuickBooks,” said Tom Blanchard, CEO of Sterling Technology Solutions. “I saw financial information. I saw tax information.”

Tom Blanchard, CEO of Sterling Technology Solutions, says he deals with these types of hacks all the time.

“New customers will come to us usually after they’ve already been hacked,” Blanchard told Queen City News.

Neither school replied to our request for comment on the hack.

In the breach, we found copies of checks, a list of parent email addresses, a list of students who were either held back or graduated to the next grade, PayPal payments, tax information, and more.

We called some of the phone numbers exposed in the breach. Some were no longer active. The others went to voicemail.

“One thing that’s very clear in this hack is that access to a server was achieved,” Blanchard said.

Blanchard tells Queen City News hackers typically want to extort people for money or spread information to cause chaos.

“If a school gets hacked, parents are going to be concerned, teachers, students, it’s going to be on the news just like this,” he said.

Perhaps the burning question is why they would target schools. Blanchard believes that, too, is strategic.

“They probably don’t have the largest IT budget in the world, and that makes them more vulnerable to attacks like this,” he said.

Blanchard says the most common delivery method for these ransomware attacks is through email phishing.

It’s not clear if this hack has directly impacted those in the breach, but Blanchard says this type of…

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