The University of Utah university of Utah

History

2020: The attack of a virus racketeer, payment of the redemption in the amount of $457 thousand.

On August 19, 2020 the College of social and behavioural sciences of Utah State University fell a victim of a virus racketeer. The management of educational institution paid hackers the redemption in the amount of $457 thousand as as a result of the attack malefactors got access to confidential data of employees and students.

According to the SiliconAngle edition, the American educational institution managed to prevent the serious attack of a virus racketeer in time, however malefactors nevertheless managed to cipher 0.02% of data which were stored on servers of the university. The management of college made the decision to pay the redemption in the amount of $457 thousand to avoid the publication of the stolen information. The ciphered data managed to be recovered from backup copies.

The university of Utah paid the redemption in $457 thousand after the attack of a virus racketeer

It is known that the amount demanded by malefactors was paid in cryptocurrency from the funds allocated to college within the policy of cyberinsurance. The administration of educational institution emphasized that the money received on training, grant programs, donations and also public funds was not used for payment of ransom.

Results of a research of specialists in cyber security of Emsisoft company demonstrate that behind the attack most likely there is a hacker NetWalker grouping. In 2020 the activity of this grouping considerably increased - using blackmail its participants managed to attract about $25,000,000. Emsisoft considers that the administration of college in vain paid the redemption for prevention of the publication of data. Making such decision, the companies are expected only a promise of hackers to delete the stolen data. Specialists consider that most likely data will not be destroyed - once malefactors will want to benefit more. For example, data can be used during a phishing.^[1]

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