by Jonathan Wharton-Street

Ransomware threats have been building for several years. With the barrier to entry lowered considerably thanks to “as-a-service” affiliate programmes, threat groups have thrived. Along with healthcare, the education sector was hard hit during the height of the pandemic, particularly in the UK. Unfortunately, the risks are no less acute in 2021: the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has recently issued a new alert warning of a surge in attacks on schools, colleges and universities. 

From speaking with customers in the education sector, we understand that the lack of centralised visibility and management across hybrid environments and systems has put a strain on resource to manage the disparate systems / consoles by multiple vendors, but more importantly that this has created a risk of threats been missed or a delay in seeing them until too late. We also understand that 3^rd party Research which brings in much needed revenue to Higher education customers, is an areas that most concerns them from the threat of ransomware.

In this first of a mini blog series on ransomware in the education sector, we take a look at the scale of the threat, and where resources should be best directed to mitigate it.