Another British University Attacked

Uploaded on 2023-08-03 in FREE TO VIEW

Data belonging to The University of the West of Scotland (UWS) has been put up for auction by an extortion cybergang on the Dark Web after UWS refused to pay a ransom.

This comes just after UWS suffered a major cyber-attack affecting most of its systems. The attack was reported to police on 6 July.

The UWS said it was facing a "cyber incident" earlier in July and police have been investigating and a statement on the site displays a message warning it is “currently down” for maintenance and apologises for any inconvenience.

The university is working with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Police Scotland and the Scottish Government to resolve the issue.

It is understood that graduations will not be affected, meaning students across UWS’s five campuses can still enjoy their end-of-term celebrations.

The university has campuses in Paisley, Ayr, Dumfries and Blantyre and London.

Initially, no criminal group came forward to claim responsibility, but ransomware group known as Rhysida has claimed it was behind the incident and has seemingly tried to use the stolen data to extort the university.

And now the ransomware gang Rhysida is demanded 20 bitcoin (£450,000) for the confidential data and says it will be sold to the highest bidder.

This attack has affected staff laptops, shut off around half of the university's IT systems, and affected student submissions.

At the time, the university's website was down and an error message apologised for "inconvenience". Some areas of the site have since been restored.

The data advertised on the gang's Deep Web domain includes personal data belonging to staff such as bank details and national insurance numbers as well as internal university documents.

Here are some Key Data Points on the Education Threat Landscape:

SonicWall’s mid-year Threat Report found that between June 2022- June 2023 ransomware attacks on the education sector declined by 38% and it found that Q1 of 2023 had the smallest number of attacks since Q4 2019, but Q2 2023 ransomware has been steadily on the rise.

This is a clear indication that in the resurgence of ransomware education is a prime target.

Other findings include:

Cryptojacking Up 31939%
Malware attacks on education up 179%
Intrusion attempts down 59%

BBC: The Scottish Sun: STV: Tech Monitor: The National: Glasgow Times: Manchester Evening News: Sonic Wall

___________________________________________________________________________________________

If you like this website and use the comprehensive 6,500-plus service supplier Directory, you can get unrestricted access, including the exclusive in-depth Directors Report series, by signing up for a Premium Subscription.