School ransomware attacks – increasing dangers?

We are seeing more and more reports of school ransomware attacks, and it is concerning to see that hackers appear to be targeting this specific sector of civilisation.

Anyone who has lost control of their personal information could be entitled to pursue a claim for data breach compensation now.

Your Lawyers – as leading Data Leak Lawyers – represent thousands of people for data breach cases and have already recovered over £1m in damages for mostly individual clients. Having been working in this area of law for a great deal longer than most other data firms out there, our experience speaks for itself.

The severity of school ransomware attacks

The potential severity of school ransomware attacks cannot be understated. Schools and education institutions often hold a wealth of incredibly personal and sensitive information for both pupils and staff. It can include financial details for employees, and it can include sensitive medical and domestic data for pupils or staff. This kind of information, in the wrong hands, could lead to hackers and fraudsters exploiting victims and the organisations that they target.

We must also remember that school ransomware attacks could cause havoc and disruption to the education of the pupils also. A simple ransomware attack could cause schools to lose access to their systems and could effectively bring their operations to a standstill. This can have a real impact on real people, so the hackers know that they can try to then extort money out of organisations in order to release locked systems.

Isle of Wight ransomware attacks

In a recent example that can show just how bad school ransomware attacks can be, a major attack reportedly hit the computer systems for some six Isle of Wight schools last August.

The attack was understood to have affected the Island Education Federation, and it was so bad that it caused some delays for the return to school in the September period. It was reported that a virus had been downloaded and that a ransomware style attack had then ensued, with systems locked down and encrypted.

An attack of this kind of scale and nature can take weeks or even months to resolve, and often needs the expertise of outside help in the form of cybersecurity experts. And this is not the only example of such an attack hitting the education sector, and we have reported on plenty of incidents in the past.

One statement in response to the attack, as covered in the Daily Mail, read as follows:

“Having spoken to our service provider, we understand that the attack means that all the information that we stored with them has been encrypted. This means we cannot and will not be able to access it again. As you can imagine, the team now have hours, days, and months of work ahead of them to recreate the information that has been lost.

In order to assist with this painstaking process, the Trustees have approved the school to close for 3 extra days at the end of the summer holidays.”

Data breach compensation advice

If you have fallen victim to a data breach, whether through a hack, leak, or other form of misuse or information exposure, we may be able to help you. We can represent eligible clients for legal cases on a No Win, No Fee basis if we believe that we can win their case – so, what do you have to lose?

For free, no-obligation advice, please do not hesitate to contact the team here now.

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