Imagine a criminal gaining unrestricted access to your child’s most private information — medical records, Social Security numbers and even details about their daily bus ride to school. This alarming scenario is becoming a reality for a growing number of families as sophisticated cybercriminals increasingly target schools across the United States, holding their computer systems and private data hostage.
Data gathered by K12 Security Information Exchange, known as K12 SIX, a nonprofit focused on protecting schools from cybersecurity threats, and analyzed by CBS News, shows that there have been hundreds of ransomware attacks on districts since 2016.
Read more…
Source: CBS News
Related:
- Russian state hackers stole data from US government networks
October 22, 2020
DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI today warned that a Russian state-sponsored APT threat group known as Energetic Bear has hacked and stolen data from US government networks during the last two months. Energetic Bear (also tracked as Berserk Bear, TeamSpy, Dragonfly, Havex, Crouching Yeti, and Koala), a hacking group active since ...
- Court orders seizure of ransomware botnet controls as U.S. election nears
October 12, 2020
Microsoft said Monday it had used a court order to take control of computers that were installing ransomware and other malicious software on local government networks and threatening to disrupt the November election. The maker of the Windows operating system said it seized a series of internet protocol addresses hosted by U.S. companies that had been ...
- Hacker groups chain VPN and Windows bugs to attack US government networks
October 12, 2020
Hackers have gained access to government networks by combining VPN and Windows bugs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a joint security alert published on Friday. Attacks have targeted federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) government networks. Attacks against non-government networks have also been ...
- Massachusetts school district shut down by ransomware attack
October 8, 2020
The Springfield Public Schools district in Massachusetts has become the victim of a ransomware attack that has caused the closure of schools while they investigate the cyberattack. Springfield is the third largest school district in Massachusetts with over 25,000 students, 4,500 employees, and more than sixty schools. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the school district opened ...
- New Jersey hospital paid ransomware gang $670K to prevent data leak
October 3, 2020
University Hospital New Jersey in Newark, New Jersey, paid a $670,000 ransomware demand this month to prevent the publishing of 240 GB of stolen data, including patient info. The attack on the hospital occurred in early September by a ransomware operation known as SunCrypt, who infiltrates a network, steals unencrypted files, and then encrypts all of ...
- US govt orders federal agencies to patch dangerous Zerologon bug by Monday
September 20, 2020
The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division has ordered federal civilian agencies to install a security patch for Windows Servers, citing “unacceptable risk” posed by the vulnerability to federal networks. The DHS order was issued via an emergency directive, a rarely-used legal mechanism through which US government officials can force federal agencies into taking various actions. The ...

