As COVID-19 cases in the U.S. continue to climb, government and higher education leaders have been focused on doing what it takes to protect campus communities from the global pandemic.
But college and university leaders would be wise if they were just as vigilant about protecting their sensitive data from the cybercriminals who are becoming increasingly sophisticated about encrypting the colleges’ data and making the colleges pay a ransom to get it back.
One of the latest examples is a ransomware attack that struck the University of California, San Francisco on June 1. In that case, cybercriminals used the NetWalker malware to encrypt data on the servers of the university’s school of medicine. This malware targets corporate networks and encrypts the data it finds on the attacked devices. This means that the device owner cannot access data on the device until a ransom in cryptocurrency demanded by the criminal is paid. The criminal gang behind NetWalker has victimized dozens of organizations.
UCSF said that the attackers breached important data related to its medical school faculty’s research. It says its COVID-19 research was not affected.
Such ransomware attacks on universities have become common. In 2019 alone,
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