X-Industry

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) reported that nearly 900 colleges and universities across the US had data stolen during attacks by a Russia-based ransomware gang exploiting the popular MOVEit file-sharing tool.  The nonprofit manages educational reporting, data exchange, verification, and research services for 3,600 colleges and universities as well as 22,000 high schools.

In June of this year, the organization first confirmed that it was affected by exploitation of the tool, which was

Schools face evolving cyber threats in an increasingly digital educational landscape.  Insider errors, ransomware attacks, and vendor vulnerabilities require a strong focus on cyber hygiene and awareness to safeguard sensitive data, says the CEO of ManagedMethods.  Although we talk about the seriousness of the cybersecurity threat in education a lot, it is worth repeating this alarming Microsoft statistic 6,110,425 (80.1% of the global total) Opens a new window enterprise malware encounter in th

Note: this Recorded Future Ransomware Tracker is updated on the second Sunday of each month to stay current.  The number of victims posted on ransomware extortion sites increased in May, with ransomware gangs publicly claiming more than 400 attacks in a month for the second time this year. 

The uptick was fueled in large part by the Russia-linked LockBit ransomware group, which posted 74 victims to its extortion site in May.  The group has become far and away the most active ransomware gang, wit

Tasmania's Tafe system, the state's Teachers Registration Board and the office of the Commissioner for Children and Young People have been caught up in a recent Tasmanian government data breach, but a security expert says reporting about hack needs to be measured.

On 7 April, the Tasmanian government said 16,000 documents had been released online after hackers accessed data from the Department of Education, Children and Young People through the third-party file transfer service GoAnywhere MFT. 

Vice Society is an intrusion, exfiltration, and extortion hacking group that first appeared in summer 2021 that has alleged ties to Russia who attacks “With Love.”  Vice have crossed the line of what many hackers said was off limits – education and health care systems and facilities.  This past September, a ransomware attack on the Los Angeles Unified School District crippled its digital operations across their system, which includes more than 1,000 schools and serves roughly 600,000 students.  

In 1972, Alice Cooper sang a popular song: “School’s Out.”  In 2020, school has literally been 'OUT for Covid.'  The global pandemic has shut down many, many global school systems.  This created a system of teaching virtually using a variety of on-line platforms.   That turned the heads of black hat hackers to successively focus on attacking school systems, teachers, parents and students.  Recently, there has been a significant increase in ransomware cyber-attacks on virtual classrooms.  The Cor

On June 23, 2020, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation sent out a security alert to K-12 schools about the increase in ransomware attacks during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, especially about ransomware gangs that abuse remote desktop connections to break into school systems.

The alert, called a Private Industry Notification, or PIN, tells schools that "cyber actors are likely to increase targeting of K-12 schools during the COVID-19 pandemic because they represent an opportunistic targe