Ransomware Thieves Cost Canada University C$20,000 In Bitcoin (itworldcanada.com)

dkatana writes: The University of Calgary paid C$20,000 ransom this week after an attack on May 28 targeted computers used by staff and faculty members, crippling multiple systems and encrypting data files and email accounts. After determining that they were unable to recover the data the ransom was paid to "protect the quality and nature of the information we generate at the university," said an official in a press release.

The fact that higher education institutions are now being targeted by ransomware is raising serious questions about their ability to protect their data and critical information systems.
IT World Canada has more details, noting that the university has reported the incident to the police, and that Trend Micro "has seen a 20% uptick in malicious requests to command and control infrastructure from infected machines over the last three months" -- several thousand requests a day.

Comments

Re:Backup

[Firethorn]

First, you have to be careful to keep enough backups to avoid the backups getting encrypted and still have an unencrypted copy close enough to the event.

Second, I support not paying for the same reason I don't want to pay kidnappers - it just encourages them to keep doing it.

Third, I hope they make it a student project to track down those that received the ransom..

Getting back on topic. It's very cheap today on a per gigabyte basis. However, most universities will have so much that the raw bill ends up pretty expensive.

Re:$20K is nothing

[ceoyoyo]

American universities can easily get to $20k/semester.