The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Utah reported that on July 19, the institution's network was attacked by a ransomware virus, and the management of the college had to pay almost $ 500,000.
In a statement, the college said many of the institution's computers were shut down after the hack and servers were shut down by IT to prevent further infection on the network. However, shutting down the servers did not help, and the attackers were able to gain access to the personal data of students and employees.
To prevent the leakage of data, the college management paid a ransom in the amount of $ 457,059. Some of the loss was covered by insurance, and the remainder of the ransom had to be taken by the college from its own funds. At the same time, funds for grants, donations or taxpayers' money did not participate in paying the ransom. The college representatives did not disclose in which cryptocurrency the ransom was paid.
After paying the ransom, the University invested heavily in modernizing the computer network and launching a monitoring and prevention system. The institution's networks and computer infrastructure are monitored 24 hours a day, and the IT environment is continuously assessed to identify any vulnerabilities that need to be addressed.
Recall that in June, the University of California at San Francisco was attacked by the NetWalker hacker group. The institution had to pay $ 1.14 million in BTC to regain access to the data of the important study.