Exploit: Ransomware
Dundee College: Academic and research institution
Risk to Small Business: 1.666 = Severe: A ransomware attack disabled Dundee College’s entire IT infrastructure, canceling classes and requiring thousands of students to reset their account credentials. Currently, the outage has lasted more than a week, and it includes access to student records, educational material, and online learning portals. The event takes place at a critical time for the school, as they are conducting interviews for future students. In addition, the incredible recovery cost and reputational damage will facilitate a serious blowback to the college’s financial viability.
Individual Risk: 2 = Severe: At this time, it’s unclear if personal data was compromised in the ransomware attack. However, Dundee College requires all students to reset their passwords before accessing their school accounts.
Customers Impacted: 5,000
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Ransomware attacks come with a litany of consequences, ranging from reputational damage to regulatory penalties and lost business. At the same time, cybercriminals are increasingly taking their attacks a step further by stealing company data before they encrypt it, increasing the impetus for companies to develop a comprehensive response strategy. Identifying compromised data and its whereabouts on the Dark Web or hacker forums is an excellent place to start.