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Phishing in blue text on a computer screen background which is black

The City of London Police is warning schools across the UK to be vigilant against phishing attacks targeting school networks. Multiple schools have reported receiving suspicious emails containing malicious attachments that have infected their networks with malware.

Once infected, the school's email systems are used to send malicious attachments to other schools.

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Help and Advice against Phishing:

Cyber Attack


NCSC Guidance Phishing Attacks: defending your organisation


Hooded person over a computer. Text Cyber Aware. Blue padlock over a username and password.  Data Protection Education DPO badge

We have previously reported how the Rhysida Ransomware has focused on attacking the education sector.  Recently the CISA, FBI and MS-ISAC have released a new joint Cyber Security Advisory to disseminate known Rhysida ransomware indicators of compromise, detection methods, tactics, techniques and procedures identified through recent investigations.

Cartoon of a criminal dressed in black with black hat, cyber criminal in orange on their chest, climbing out of a computer carrying a yellow computer folder on their shoulder

As a data protection officer we are seeing a rise in the number of cyber attacks on organisations.  We often find that the fact an actual crime has been committed is sometimes overlooked in the panic and need to recover data and get operations back up and running.  According to the National Crime Agency (NCA) cyber crime continues to rise in scale and complexity, affecting essential services, businesses and private individuals.  Cyber crime costs the UK billions of pounds, causes untold damage and threatens national security.

data breach in orange computer text on a computer screen with computer code

The British Computer Society (BCS) has recently published the biggest data leaks of 2023.  The leaks cover worldwide cyber attacks, but the lessons learned apply to organisations of all types all around the world.  The data breaches include The Guardian Newspaper, LastPass password manager, Royal Mail, MOVEit, Microsoft, The UK Electoral Commission.

Dark hooded person working on a laptop with a beam of a padlock and a password field.  Be Cyber Aware in white cyber text and the Data Protection Education DPO services badge in the bottom right

Several countries have pledged never to pay cyber criminal ransoms and to collectively work toward disrupting their financial systems.  The members affirmed their joint commitment to building their collective resilience to ransomware.  They will share data on ransomware perpetrators and techniques and establish a blacklist of information about digital wallets used to facilitate ransomware payments.

Be cyber aware in orange text on a blue background above a blue mobile phone, blue key store, blue key and a blue shield with a green tick inside it.

The NSA and CISA Red and Blue teams recently shared the top ten cyber security misconfigurations.  The schools we have worked with that have suffered a cyber attack often find that there are configurations, upgrades or user access controls that were missed.  This advisory highlights all of those and more - these are not in-depth configurations, but often ones that are set up incorrectly and then not checked or updated as time goes by. Although the advisory is aimed at larger organisations, we think it applied to all and will help towards becoming more cyber resilient.

  1. ICO Reprimand: company suffered a ransomware attack
  2. The UK Online Safety Bill becomes an Act (Law)
  3. The importance of software updates (PaperCut vulnerability and Rhysida ransomware)
  4. Ransomware, extortion and the cyber crime ecosystem
  5. Cyber Resource: The Cyber Resilience Centre Group
  6. Email and Security: ICO recent guidance
  7. Help after a Cyber Attack/Incident
  8. What to do in the event of a Cyber Attack
  9. How KCSIE is linked to Cyber Strategy
  10. Cyber Crime: AI Generated Phishing Attacks
  11. Cyber Attack: Exam Boards
  12. VICE SOCIETY - Ransomware attacks on schools
  13. Using Tags if you are a group of organisations in the DPE Knowledge Bank
  14. Where's Harry the Hacker?
  15. Be Cyber Aware: USB Sticks
  16. Cyber Insurance in the Public Sector
  17. Types of Cyber Attacks: DDos Attack (Microsoft DDoS Attack in June)
  18. Cyber Attack: Leytonstone School
  19. Be Cyber Aware: Firewalls
  20. Be Cyber Aware: Cyber attacks and transparency. A no blame culture
  21. Cyber Attack: Dorchester School
  22. Knowledge Bank Role Types: Admin, Staff and Trustee
  23. Be Cyber Aware: Why regular software updates are important
  24. Cyber Attack: Wiltshire School
  25. Keeping your IT systems safe and secure
  26. Why we recommend using PIN codes on printers
  27. Types of Cyber Attacks: DDoS Attacks
  28. Types of Cyber Attacks: Phishing
  29. Redaction Guidelines Updated
  30. Types of Cyber Attacks: The Insider Threat
  31. Why your data is profitable to cyber criminals
  32. Knowledge Bank Updates
  33. Types of malware and how they are linked to data protection
  34. Windows Server 2012 & 2012 R2 Retirement
  35. How to contact us for support, subject access requests, data breaches and FOI's
  36. How a school fought back after a cyberattack
  37. Types of Cyber Attacks - Credential Stuffing
  38. January Cyber update - How Can Schools Help Prevent Cyber Attacks?
  39. Assigning courses to staff using to-dos
  40. The Education sector now at highest risk of cyber attacks
  41. Cyber Attacks
  42. Best Practice for Managing Photos and Video
  43. Compliance Manager released
  44. Emails – good practice and minimising the risk of a data breach

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