News
Comment – UK schools the next target for hackers?
January 2017 by Datto EMEA MD, Andrew Stuart
The BBC has reported that “Fraudsters are targeting UK schools, demanding payments of up to £8,000 to unlock data they have encrypted with malware.”
The online criminals are initially cold-calling schools, claiming to be from the Department of Education, and then sending file-freezing malware in documents to the head teacher’s direct email addresses.
According to security expert Graham Cluley “If you aren’t backing up your data, it’s you who needs to go back to school” but data recovery and backup solutions provider Datto asks while backup is good, what about recovery?
Datto EMEA MD, Andrew Stuart, comments:
“Unscrupulous hackers see ransomware as a business, and have already been known to exploit hospitals and even charities, so schools were always possible targets. It is vital that schools review their data backup procedures to ensure that they not only have copies of all critical data, but can restore their data smoothly in the event of a ransomware incident. Backup itself is just the first step; if you have the ability to recover lost data quickly, you can keep your business or school functioning with minimal downtime and interruption, and without paying a ransom."
