The National Cyber Security Centre has warned colleges and universities that there is a real risk of their systems being infected by ransomware, as they prepare to begin what promising to be a highly unusual academic year.
Cyber threat to disrupt start of university term: BBC News
Many organisations including academic ones have suffered ransomware attacks during the pandemic as more of us have been working and studying remotely outside our normal security perimeters.
Technical steps have to be taken to defend against this type of cyber attack but training and user vigilance is the last line of defence if the technical defences are evaded.
However the attackers only have to deceive a single well trained and vigilant person into clicking on a link or opening an attachment to win – so there has to be fall back and that is a robust back-up of your data that the attackers cannot access so it is safe. With this you can rebuild the damage they have done.
Octagon Technology has a range of 21st century (no tapes here) scalable back-up solutions that they deliver to clients. These have tested in real world situations when clients have been infected with ransomware, both before and during the pandemic, and they have allowed the clients to shrug off the demands for money and return to business as normal.
Clive Catton MSc (Cyber Security) – by-line and other articles
