Malware – BU-CERT

Since late February 2021, an increased number of ransomware attacks have affected education establishments in the UK, including schools, colleges and universities. Advice to help these institutions counter a rise in cyber attacks has been provided by the NCSC.

The NCSC urges all organisations to follow our guidance on ‘Mitigating malware and ransomware.’ This details a number of steps organisations can take to disrupt ransomware attack vectors and enable effective recovery from ransomware attacks. Furthermore, The NCSC has produced a number of practical resources to help schools and other educational institutions improve their cyber security.

Further information from the NCSC can be found here https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/support-for-uk-education-sector-after-growth-in-cyber-attacks

The NCSC’s alert can be found here https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/alert-targeted-ransomware-attacks-on-uk-education-sector

An Ivy League private research University in the USA, Brown University, takes steps to disable systems and cut connections to the data center after a cyber attack on the 30th March, 2021.

IT staff at the University said the attack focused on the university’s Windows-based devices and asked faculty and staff to switch to computers running other operating systems, smartphones, or tablets.

Whilst there were no details shared regarding the nature of the incident, Brown’s CIO added that “employees can contact their IT Support Consultant (ITSC) or Departmental Computing Coordinator (DCC) to determine if their Windows machine has ‘known-clean’ status,” hinting at a malware attack.

Further information about the attack can be found here:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/brown-university-hit-by-cyberattack-some-systems-still-offline/

Tag: Malware

The NCSC supports UK educational sector against an increase in attacks

Suspected Malware attack affects US University operations and Windows-based devices