University of Utah Pays Ransomware Gang to Prevent Student Data Leak

Published at: Aug. 22, 2020

The University of Utah’s College of Social and Behavioral Science confirmed that they were hit by a ransomware attack on July 19.

According to a statement issued by the University, the gang left many computers inaccessible for several hours as staff took servers offline to prevent the malware from spreading to other machines on the school’s network.

Following internal discussion, officials decided to work with the school’s cyber insurance provider to pay a $457,059 ransom in order to prevent a data leak.

Staff from the university clarified that the insurance policy paid part of the ransom and they covered the rest themselves. No details about the crypto involved in the transaction were disclosed.

In early June, media outlets reported that the NetWalker ransomware gang had attacked Michigan State University, or MSU. While the gang threatened to leak students’ records and financial documents, officials from the university have said that they refused to pay the ransom.

Cointelegraph also reported on June 3 that the NetWalker ransomware group had also targeted three US-based universities.

Tags
Related Posts
California University Pays Million-Dollar Crypto Ransom
The University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine reportedly paid a $1.14 million ransom in cryptocurrencies to the hackers behind a ransomware attack on June 1. According to CBS San Francisco, the UCSF IT staff first detected the security incident, stating that the attack launched by NetWalker group affected “a limited number of servers in the School of Medicine.” Although the areas were isolated by experts from the internal network, the hackers left the servers inaccessible and managed to deploy the ransomware successfully. A statement published by the University of California said: “The data that was encrypted is …
Technology / June 30, 2020
Michigan State University Hit by Ransomware, Refuses to Pay Criminals
In early June, media outlets reported that the NetWalker ransomware gang had attacked Michigan State University, or MSU. At the time, the gang threatened to leak students’ records and financial documents. The university’s officials now have said that they will not pay the ransom. According to Detroit Free Press, the unspecified bounty requested in crypto by the ransomware group will not be paid by MSU. Officials did not publish an official statement addressing the reasons behind the decision. The attack seems to have happened on the U.S. Memorial Day holiday. It shut down the MSU’s computer systems, and breached its …
Technology / June 11, 2020
Well-Known Ransomware Gang Strikes Three Companies in the US and Canada
Ransomware group REvil has launched another series of attacks targeting three companies in the U.S. and Canada. As of press time, they have leaked data from two of the companies, and threatened to disclose sensitive data from the third. The companies are well-known Canadian accounting firm, Goodman Mintz LLP, licensed real estate broker Strategic Sites LLC, and ZEGG Hotels & Store, a duty-free store. First target of the week: an accounting company The gang kicked-off the week by leaking sensitive data from the Canada-based accounting company, Goodman Mintz LLP. The leak included company files, accounting and working documents of clients, …
Technology / June 17, 2020
Knoxville Is the Latest American City to Suffer a Ransomware Attack
An unidentified ransomware gang attacked the city of Knoxville, Tennessee’s IT network, forcing officers to shut down all systems on June 12. According to local news station WVLT, the attack took place sometime between June 10–11, encrypting all files within the network infrastructure. The attack forced workstations of the internal IT network to be shut down, which also disconnected internet access from the mayor’s infrastructure, public website, and even the Knoxville court. The FBI is currently assisting in the investigation, although the identity of the ransomware group behind the attack has not yet been revealed. The official statement from the …
Technology / June 15, 2020
Ransomware Strikes Three US Universities
A ransomware gang claims to have successfully attacked three universities within the last seven days. They say that their latest attack was against the University of California San Francisco, or UCSF, on June 3. Cointelegraph had access to the evidence published by NetWalker, a group of hackers, on their official dark web blog. In this blog, they claimed to have stolen sensitive data, including student names, social security numbers, and financial information. NetWalker threatened to leak the data in less than a week if crypto payment in Bitcoin (BTC) is not made. The information is from Michigan State, Columbia College …
Technology / June 4, 2020