Education targeted Ransomware attacks
Schools are increasingly being targeted by cyber criminals. The latest approach is for the criminals to ring the school claiming to be from the Department of Education (remember it's the Department for Education) and asking for the email details for the head teacher/ finance administrator. The fraudsters then claim that they need to send guidance forms to the head teacher (these so far have varied from exam guidance to mental health assessments). The scammers on the phone will claim that they need to send these documents directly to the head teacher and not to a generic school inbox, using the argument that they contain sensitive information. The emails will include an attachment – a .zip file (potentially masked as an Excel or Word document). This attachment will contain ransomware, that once downloaded will encrypt files and demand money (up to £8000) to recover the files.