Cyberattacks in higher education at an epidemic level

Cybercriminals hit public institutions hard with ransomware in 2019 and 2020. Colleges and universities lost millions to fraudsters. These thieves endangered students’ records and stole PII, which they sold on the dark web. Administrators must train students, educators and staffs to avoid opening suspicious email attachments.

The University of Utah cyber event started with “an unknown entity” hacking into the College of Social and Behavioral Science computer servers on July 19, 2020, which left them temporarily useless. Administrative officials immediately notified law enforcement and the university’s information security office (ISO). The university then hired an outside consulting firm with specialized experience to assist. The firm’s technicians immediately isolated the hacked computer systems from the rest of the university’s systems. They then scrubbed the systems, and the ISO reinstalled the pertinent data from previous backups.