Ransomware the final nail in coffin for small university
- Reference: 1652364635
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/05/12/ransomware_dangerous_enough_to_close/
- Source link:
After 157 years, Lincoln College, the rural university with an average of 1100 students, is shutting its doors following years of rapid decline triggered by COVID-19 and compounded by the [1]ransomware attack.
The ransomware assault that hit in December 2021 originated in Iran, college president David Gerlach [2]told the Chicago Tribune . According to Lincoln's closure letter, the attack hindered access to all institutional data, interrupted admissions and took retention, fundraising and recruitment systems offline.
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The College said that no personal identifying information was exposed.
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Gerlach told the Tribune that it cost Lincoln an unspecified amount less than $100,000 to restore the systems. "Once fully restored in March 2022, the projections displayed significant enrollment shortfalls, requiring a transformational donation or partnership to sustain Lincoln College beyond the current semester," the College said.
Attempts to raise funds, sell assets, consolidate jobs and other money-making schemes failed to materialize the $50 million Gerlach said the university would have needed to keep going.
[6]IT outage at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University enters second week
[7]Cyber insurance model is broken, consider banning ransomware payments, says think tank
[8]The policy of truth: As ransomware claims rise, what's a cyber insurer to do?
[9]UK colleges and unis urged to prepare for ransomware before it's too late
Now, after surviving "the economic crisis of 1887, a major campus fire in 1912, the Spanish flu of 1918, the Great Depression, World War II, the 2008 global financial crisis, and more," it's lights out, lost jobs and students left to hunt for new schools.
Lincoln's shutdown: Avoidable?
Lincoln College has been light with specifics about the attack, which raises a big question: Was the university doing all it could to secure its systems and users?
"The economic burdens initiated by the pandemic required large investments in technology and campus safety measures, as well as a significant drop in enrollment with students choosing to postpone college or take a leave of absence," the university stated in the letter.
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Indiana University's Research and Education Networks Information Sharing and Analysis Center ( [11]REN-ISAC ) is a higher education threat intelligence group. It pools threat data, provides intelligence feeds and actionable alerts, penetration testing and more. Lincoln College was not among the [12]708 institutions from around the world who are part of the group, REN-ISAC director Kim Milford [13]told NBC News.
[14]Performing regular backups is among the most common advice for businesses, and with good reason: Ransomware isn't an ingress strategy, meaning there are countless ways for an infection to get into a system.
Trying to plug each one can quickly become an exercise in futility, especially without the threat intelligence necessary to know which to prioritize. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/Tag/Ransomware/
[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-lincoln-college-closing-20220413-hqdhyocd4ngy5fooled7hzczlq-story.html
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yn0vJF79KJj1sdE9TX73AgAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yn0vJF79KJj1sdE9TX73AgAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yn0vJF79KJj1sdE9TX73AgAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/24/heriot_watt_outage/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/rusi_cyber_insurance_ransomware_report/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/04/ransomware_claims_feature/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/23/ransomware_targeting_education_ncsc_warning/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yn0vJF79KJj1sdE9TX73AgAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.ren-isac.net/index.html
[12] https://www.ren-isac.net/membership/MemberList.html
[13] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/ransomware-attack-covid-combine-shutter-illinois-college-rcna24905
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/31/world_backup_day/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I'm sure "lack of budget" was the excuse for not having any backups. The real reason was most likely "I just can't be arsed to do it".
As the OP said, there are ways to do basic backups very cheaply is someone is interested in trying...
If they could afford to pay the ransom, they could have afforded decent backups. These days, $100K will buy a lot of backups! I back up critical data to Amazon Glacier, and my AWS bill is $0.30 per month!
Reading a bit further they didn't seem to get a lot of financial support
They hoped to raise $20 million vi GoFundMe, but got $777. It's hardly a great endorsement.
Re: Reading a bit further they didn't seem to get a lot of financial support
To keep a small institution like that going you've got to have a unique selling point - ultra selective intake for some specialty (music, medicine etc) or social group (that has either wealthy students or wealthy donors to keep it afloat). It looked to me that they suspected the writing was on the wall before the pandemic, the loss of students because of the pandemic was what finished them off, and the only effect of the ransomware was that they didn't get the business plan bad news sooner. Probably the only salvation would have been a merger with (takeover by) some other Uni, I guess there was no obliging party.
Universities seem to be common targets/victims of ransomware and probably for similar reasons. They are all generally early adopters of computers, but often form a poorly managed setup due to the "heading cats" problem of academics with organically grown 1001 unusual computer needs, and the usual problem of limited budgets for actual IT professionals to support it. With both staff and students having internal access it is very easy for malware to get in, and usually the Windows-basis for most stuff and poor network segmentation makes it pretty easy to get around one your phisherman had done their job.
Sad to see any institution go, but I guess this one must have been on its way down and out long before the attack.
could I be hearing Queen singing?
I bear no ill will towards anyone associated with that college, but I think there are many too many colleges and universities in the US, and if 1/2 of them shut down after this semester, I wouldn't care at all.
Not the crime of the 60s and 70s
I remember when you took something hostage or hijacked the plane because they had deep pockets, and you stood to gain from it. This sucks plain and simple. As a native of Killinois, Smellinois call it what you like, I feel bad for Lincoln U. So long...
Their budget was probably limited due to the other issues. However, backups are cheap and some solutions are even free. I worked for a charity at one point with a ridiculous budget, but we never missed a backup.