RANSOMWARE ATTACK BEHIND THE SCENE.
The Chicago Public Schools revealed that data of more than 500,000 students and employees have been exposed as a result of a ransomware attack. The hackers targeted Battelle for Kids, a not-for-profit organization that handles student data.
A statement released by the school’s administration says that the attackers gained access to full names, dates of birth, genders, school branches, classes, ID numbers and course information. However, home addresses, social security numbers, health and financial information remained safe from going into the hands of unauthorized persons.
Although the breach occurred on December 1 last year, the technology vendor Battelle for Kids did not notify Chicago Public Schools until April 26 this year. They issued a statement which reads like this: “In December 2021, Battelle for Kids was the victim of a cybersecurity ransomware attack. We immediately engaged a national cybersecurity firm to assess the scope of the incident and took steps to mitigate the potential impact.” The students and employees who were affected by the breach have been informed of the incident and they will receive free identity theft protection together with credit monitoring from CPS.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have received the report of the crime. The investigation is ongoing but no headway has been made that could lead to the perpetrators of the crime. That’s why experts speculate that ransom amount might have been paid by the technology vendor to avoid the attackers’ next move that could be damaging. It has been noticed that when ransom is not paid, the criminals promptly publish the stolen data on public platforms. Anyone can then gain access and misuse the data at will. Certainly, Battelle for Kids might have been endevoring to keep the data from reaching public eyes.
Although the scale of attack was huge, the act wasn’t anything new. Cyber crime has entered into a new age where everything is getting darker and murkier. In the last month alone, a number of educational bodies were victimized. For instance, North Carolina A&T State University located in Greensboro suffered a ransomware attack which disrupted a number of facilities like the wireless connections, single sign-on websites, VPN, jabber, Qualtrics, Banner Document Management and Chrome River. The administration and the cybersecurity response team could not restore some of the services even to this day. A similar attack was launched on Florida International University. In both the cases the Black Cat group, aka ALPHV, stole personal information of students, teachers and other staff members. The group has also claimed to have gained access to contracts, financial information, SQL databases and email addresses.
A college of national importance with a history and traditions of more than 157 years was forced to close down after a malicious ransomware attack. The breach at Battelle for Kids followed soon afterwards. Security specialists believe that ransomware attacks are not just limited to educational sector. There has been nearly 70% rise in such attacks and a majority of them are aimed at small to medium sized organizations because they are not as well-protected as other larger outfits.
To limit the damage to a minimum, experts suggest a number of precautionary measures and careful handling of sensitive data. If organizations train all their employees and make them adhere to those small steps, then businesses and organizations would be safer.
