BACKGROUND:
Last week, NCSC announced it is investigating another increase in ransomware attacks against schools, colleges and universities in the UK.
SonicWall’s threat research reveals that:
- The UK was the 4th worst-affected country for ransomware, with 8.5 million attacks, making up 4.2% of all global attacks
- Global ransomware attacks rose 62%, with 304.6 million attacks worldwide
- April 2021 was the highest single month of ransomware ever on record (48.3M)
- There has been a 90% year to date increase in ransomware (Jan-April’20 vs. Jan-April ’21)
<p>Ransomware attackers have identified universities’ vulnerabilities as providing something valuable as well as information that is readily exportable. Hackers can not only disable networks, but they can also thoroughly infiltrate the systems and access any data to use as a lever. If a hacker gains access to credentials, intellectual property or research in an environment where multi-factor authentication is not used, the hacker may access an organisation\’s records, bypassing security altogether.</p>