Over Half Of UK Universities Hit By Ransomware

SentinelOne FoI request released, finding that over half of UK universities have been hit by ransomware in the past year, whilst Bournemouth University alone has been hit 21 times. Ben Johnson, Chief Security Strategist at Carbon Black commented below.

 Ben Johnson, Chief Security Strategist at Carbon Black:

“When it comes to ransomware, universities are just as lucrative a target as hospitals, county councils or any other type of organisation. Users can fall victim to ransomware through conventional means like phishing and spam emails, but in the last few years, attackers have started leveraging exploit kits such as Angler and Nuclear. As a result, users no longer need to unintentionally run malware on their machines. Simply visiting the wrong web page can drop a damaging CryptoLocker variant, like TeslaCrypt.

“As such, even the most educated end users, that never click on email attachments, and practice good security procedures can become victims of sophisticated exploits, through drive-bys and other exploit kits. The best way to stop ransomware is to implement a security system that continuously, centrally records all endpoint activity and stops untrusted code from executing on endpoints.”