DePauw University this week warned its students that their personal information may have been compromised by hackers who attacked the school.
See also: University of Sydney: Who is affected by the recent data breach?
According to the school newspaper, on November 27, current and prospective students received letters notifying them of a data breach and were provided with a year of free services .
The liberal arts university — which is located in Greencastle, Indiana and serves about 1,700 students — issued its own update on the incident. IT officials detected the cyberattack on Oct. 31 and worked with federal law enforcement and cybersecurity experts to investigate the incident.
"Although the investigation is ongoing, the preliminary investigation has revealed that limited data was compromised regarding specific individuals. These people have been notified via email of the breach of their data and we will provide them with resources to protect their identities," they said.
“We regret the impact this incident has had on our community and are commissioning a review of all of our current safety protocols and adding additional measures to enhance safety as appropriate..”
See also: University of Michigan: Systems offline due to cyberattack
The school added that the reason it had this information was because it “retains certain personal information for standard enrollment and administrative purposes.” Officials did not say what information had been compromised and did not respond to requests for comment.
This week, the Black Suit ransomware group announced that it was behind the attack, reporting that 214 GB of data was stolen.
The public was first notified of the attack on November 1, when the university's internet connection went down. Students lost access to college printers, email, the internet , and the university network.
The attack on DePauw University adds another school to the long list of educational institutions targeted by ransomware gangs this year . Emsisoft ransomware expert Brett Callow reported that at least 76 universities have been hit by ransomware so far in 2023, far surpassing the 44 colleges and universities attacked in 2022.
See also: University of Michigan: Requires password reset after recent cyberattack
Protection measures
One of the main protective measures universities can take to prevent ransomware attacks is to educate staff and students. It is important that they are informed about the risks of ransomware attacks and learn how to recognize and avoid malicious emails, unwanted downloads, and malware.
Another important protection measure is regular data backups. Academic organizations should maintain copies of their data on external storage in order to restore their data in the event of a ransomware attack.
Additionally, keeping up to date with and applying the latest software and operating system updates is crucial. University organizations should enforce automatic updates of their computers and network systems to close any vulnerabilities that attackers might exploit.
Finally, using strong passwords and multi-factor authentication is essential to protecting university networks. Users should use unique passwords for each account and enable two-factor authentication, when available, to protect their personal data and university networks.
Source: therecord
