According to a statement issued by the University of Utah’s College of Social and Behavioral Science, attackers left many computers inaccessible for several hours as staff took servers offline to prevent the malware from spreading to other machines on the school’s network. The college was hit by a ransomware attack on July 19. The University met the demand of hackers to prevent the data of students. Hackers seem to have got away with cybercrime.
The college worked with the cyber insurance provider to pay a $457,059 ransom.
Following internal discussion, the officials decided to work with the school’s cyber insurance provider to pay a $457,059 ransom in order to prevent the data leak. Staff from the university clarified that the insurance policy paid part of the ransom and covered the rest. However, no details about the cryptocurrency involved in the transaction were disclosed.
Earlier it was also reported that the NetWalker ransomware gang had attacked Michigan State University or MSU. While the hackers threatened to leak students’ records and financial documents, officials from the university have said that they refused to pay the ransom.
Crypto ransomware attacks continue to rise amid the pandemic.
Ransomware attacks have increased in recent times as cryptocurrencies continue to gain mainstream exposure. Earlier, the Singaporean government published a study called Cyber Landscape 2019 that showed that there were 35 reports of ransomware incidents in the last year alone. A report published by the Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky revealed that the country had seen a significant increase in attempted crypto-jacking during the first quarter of this year. Typical crypto scams have also surged in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Crypto scammers are now tailoring their pitch according to the situation and luring in victims, who eventually lose their investments. FBI and US SEC have warned people of increasing crypto scams and to beware of the same.
