Hackers hold Newcastle Uni student data to ransom
DoppelPaymer group is threatening to release more data online unless the university pays out
Newcastle University is being held to ransom after cyber criminals hacked into its systems at the start of September.
The group behind the attack are known as 'DoppelPaymer' and have been previously linked to an attack on Elon Musk's companies SpaceX and Tesla.
The attack on the university was reported as a "cyber incident" which shutdown a number of its IT systems and took place on 4 September. At around 10:00 that same day, a backup file was taken, the university said.
The criminals have posted some of this data, which concerns students and staff members, on the dark web, according to the group's Twitter page, with a threat of more to come if they don't pay the ransom.
"Dear students of the New Castle University Congratulations with an upcoming release of your personal data," the tweet read. "What a great start of a new educational year #doppelpaymer #ransomware #malware #doppleleaks"
The university said it had alerted the Information Commissioner's Office and the police. According to its website, it could take "several weeks" to address its IT issues. As such, many services will remain offline. Third-party security experts have been drafted in, the university confirmed, and an investigation into the attack and the extent of the damage is underway.
The attack on Newcastle University follows another on Northumbria University, which had to cancel exams and shutdown its clearing hotline due to IT disruption. Although the method of attack wasn't specified in the Northumbria case, Newcastle has been reportedly hit with ransomware, which is becoming increasingly common for universities in 2020.
The DoppelPaymer group are said to also offer their services for others to use, similar to the 'ransomware as a service' (RaaS) operation run by the Netwalker group, which has reportedly made over $29 million since March.
-
Ransomware negotiator sentenced for role in major cyber crime groupNews Deniss Zolotarjovs was a key player in a group associated with Conti
-
Threat actors ditch ‘spray and pray’ attacks in shift to targeted exploitationNews A dip in ransomware volumes points to a more targeted approach focused on vulnerability exploitation
-
Security leaders overconfident about ransomware recoveryNews Few manage to recover all their data, and many experience business disruption
-
German authorities want your help finding the hackers behind GandCrab and REvilNews Daniil Maksimovich Shchukin and Anatoly Sergeevitsch Kravchuk are believed to have made millions from ransomware as a service schemes
-
The rise of teen hackers ‘makes for a good headline’, but cyber crime activities peak later in life
News With family responsibilities and mortgages to pay, it's not teenagers dishing out malware or carrying out cyber extortion
-
Ransomware gangs are using employee monitoring software as a springboard for cyber attacks
News Two attempted attacks aimed to exploit Net Monitor for Employees Professional and SimpleHelp
-
Ransomware gangs are sharing virtual machines to wage cyber attacks on the cheap – but it could be their undoingNews Thousands of attacker servers all had the same autogenerated Windows hostnames, according to Sophos
-
Google issues warning over ShinyHunters-branded vishing campaignsNews Related groups are stealing data through voice phishing and fake credential harvesting websites
