No One Is Immune

Sam Curry is chief security officer at Cybereason. He said the Howard University attack is yet another reminder that no one is immune.

“It isn’t surprising that higher education institutions are targets, because they have wide attack surfaces that are oftentimes poorly secured,” he said. “With the start of a new semester and millions of students returning to college campuses, threat actors know that colleges are likely to quickly pay the ransom because they want to minimize damages caused by a prolonged lockdown. However, paying a ransom doesn’t guarantee a fast return to normalcy. In fact, a recent Cybereason study of more than 1,000 businesses showed that 80% of businesses that paid a ransom were hit by a second ransomware attack.”

Curry’s advice? If you can at all avoid it, don’t pay the ransom.

“In some cases, you can’t legally pay as with funding terrorism and organized crime, but it’s never a good idea to pay unless the cost of doing so affects human life, public safety or is existential,” he said.