Education and Academia


  • Intel CPUs vulnerable to new transient execution side-channel attack

    April 24, 2023

    A new side-channel attack impacting multiple generations of Intel CPUs has been discovered, allowing data to be leaked through the EFLAGS register. The new attack was discovered by researchers at Tsinghua University, the University of Maryland, and a computer lab (BUPT) run by the Chinese Ministry of Education and is different than most other side-channel attacks. Read ...

  • Medusa ransomware claims attack on Open University of Cyprus

    April 6, 2023

    The Medusa ransomware gang has claimed a cyberattack on the Open University of Cyprus (OUC), which caused severe disruptions of the organization’s operations. OUC is an online university based in Nicosia, Cyprus, that provides remote learning. It offers 30 higher-level education programs to 4,200 students and participates in various scientific research activities. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer  

  • Hackers attack several Israeli university websites

    April 4, 2023

    The sites of Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Haifa University, Weizmann Institute of Science, Open University of Israel and Reichman University were among the sites inaccessible due to the cyberattack. The group posted a statement on its Telegram account, listing the attacked websites. “Infrastructure: Universities – Israel’s education sector ...

  • University of California targeted in cyber attack

    March 31, 2023

    The University of California said Wednesday that it was subject to a cyber attack that has compromised the personal information of some individuals in the university community. According to the ten-campus university system, the cyber attack “involves the use of Accellion, a vendor used by many organizations for secure file transfer, in which an unauthorized individual ...

  • APT43: North Korean Group Uses Cybercrime to Fund Espionage Operations

    March 28, 2023

    Mandiant researchers released a report on APT43, a prolific threat actor operating on behalf of the North Korean regime that they have observed engaging in cybercrime as a way to fund their espionage operations. According to Mandiant they track tons of activity throughout the year, but don’t always have enough evidence to attribute it to a ...

  • Wymondham College hit by sophisticated cyber attack

    March 14, 2023

    Wymondham College said disruption was likely to continue until the Easter holidays due to its IT system being targeted. In a message sent to students, seen by the EDP, the college apologised for disruption but said it believed there had been no data breach. Read more… Source: Wymondham Evening News  

  • Invitation to a secret event: Uncovering Earth Yako’s campaigns

    February 16, 2023

    In 2021, Trend Micro researchers observed several targeted attacks against researchers of academic organizations and think tanks in Japan. Trend Micro have since been tracking this series of attacks and identified the new intrusion set we have named “Earth Yako”. Their research points the attribution to the known campaign “Operation RestyLink” or “Enelink”. Upon investigating several ...

  • North Korean hackers stole research data in two-month-long breach

    February 2, 2023

    A new cyber espionage campaign dubbed ‘No Pineapple!’ has been attributed to the North Korean Lazarus hacking group, allowing the threat actors to stealthily steal 100GB of data from the victim without causing any destruction. The campaign lasted between August and November 2022, targeting organizations in medical research, healthcare, chemical engineering, energy, defense, and a leading ...

  • University of Iowa Hospitals website possibly hit by cyberattack

    February 1, 2023

    A Russian hacking group has claimed to have taken down the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics website, along with the websites of dozens of other hospitals nationwide. UIHC has acknowledged its website is down Tuesday afternoon and its IT staff is investigating the cause but could not confirm whether it was the result of a ...

  • University of Michigan Health says cyber attack impacted public websites, not patient info

    January 30, 2023

    Michigan Health officials say its public websites experienced issues due to a cyber attack but claims the issue did not impact patient information. In a statement on Monday, officials say the attack affected a “third-party vendor we use to host some of our sites.” Read more… Source: CBS Detroit News  

  • LAUSD says Vice Society ransomware gang stole contractors’ SSNs

    January 20, 2023

    Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest school district in the United States, says the Vice Society ransomware gang has stolen files containing contractors’ personal information, including Social Security Numbers (SSNs). LAUSD also revealed that the threat actors were active in its network for over two months, between July 31, 2022, and September 3, 2022. Read ...

  • Russian troll farms didn’t sway voters in 2016 election

    January 9, 2023

    A new in-depth study has concluded that the Russian government’s efforts to deploy troll farms on Twitter to sway the 2016 election did not have any measurable impact on the outcome of that race. The U.S. government has been largely united in its assessment that the Kremlin attempted to use online proxies and false internet personas ...

  • Iowa’s largest city cancels classes due to cyber attack

    January 9, 2023

    Iowa’s largest school district cancelled classes for Tuesday after determining there was a cyber attack on its technology network. Des Moines Public Schools announced Monday that classes would be cancelled for its 33,000 students after being “alerted to a cyber security incident on its technology network.” The district said in a news release that it took its ...

  • What Can Schools Do Against the Onslaught of Ransomware?

    December 22, 2022

    Cyber attacks have become a pressing issue for K-12 schools, but school districts aren’t waging the fight alone. A variety of free federal and state resources can offer guidance and assistance, while cyber best practices and automated and managed services can help schools get the most impact from their limited budgets, said speakers during a ...

  • Air-gapped PCs vulnerable to data theft via power supply radiation

    December 10, 2022

    A new attack method named COVID-bit uses electromagnetic waves to transmit data from air-gapped systems, which are isolated from the internet, over a distance of at least two meters (6.5 ft), where it’s captured by a receiver. The information emanating from the isolated device could be picked up by a nearby smartphone or laptop, even if ...

  • All India Institute of Medical Sciences restores e-Hospital data after cyber attack

    November 30, 2022

    The server at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi has been down for the eighth day in a row, and according to reports, more analysts from Delhi are under consideration for suspension for cybersecurity violations after two of them were already suspended. According to the sources quoted by the report, “The sanitising ...

  • Vice Society ransomware claims attack on Cincinnati State college

    November 25, 2022

    The Vice Society ransomware operation has claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, with the threat actors now leaking data allegedly stolen during the attack. The hackers posted a long list of documents on their Tor data leak site they claim was stolen from the college, indicating that a ransom was ...

  • Earth Preta Spear-Phishing Governments Worldwide

    November 17, 2022

    Trend Micro researchers have been monitoring a wave of spear-phishing attacks targeting the government, academic, foundations, and research sectors around the world. Based on the lure documents researchers observed in the wild, this is a large-scale cyberespionage campaign that began around March. After months of tracking, the seemingly wide outbreak of targeted attacks includes but ...

  • Cyber vulnerability in networks used by spacecraft, aircraft and energy generation systems

    November 15, 2022

    A major vulnerability in a networking technology widely used in critical infrastructures such as spacecraft, aircraft, energy generation systems and industrial control systems was exposed by researchers at the University of Michigan and NASA. It goes after a network protocol and hardware system called time-triggered ethernet, or TTE, which greatly reduces costs in high-risk settings by ...

  • How Ransomware Is Causing Chaos in American Schools

    October 3, 2022

    May 19, 2021 was supposed to be just another day at the end of the school year at Sierra College, a community college in Rocklin, California. Instead, hackers hit the school with ransomware, throwing it into chaos. “We are experiencing a major cybersecurity event this morning that is impacting the majority of services at Sierra College,” ...