College in Kansas City Victim of Ransomware Attack
The students and staff members who were possibly impacted by the ransomware attack were notified back in June.
Kansas City, Missouri – The Metropolitan Community College of Kansas City (MCCKC) announced on Wednesday that they were the victim of a ransomware attack and that some data had been encrypted.
A hacker may have had access to student and employee data from March 10 to June 4, reports KCTV. However, an investigation revealed that the information was not extracted or misused.
“We have chosen to notify all potentially impacted parties of this incident out of an abundance of caution and in full transparency,” MCCKC said in a statement.
The school notified the population who might have been affected by the ransomware attack on June 19.
Institutions of higher education are often targeted by hackers, and in May, NetWalker (Mailto) ransomware infected the network of Michigan State University. That same ransomware infected the University of California at San Francisco, and the school eventually paid the hackers $1.14 million.
Researchers have found hackers are increasingly targeting university students and staff members through phishing emails during the coronavirus crisis. In April, a ransomware attack shut down the servers of Illinois Valley Community College.
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About the Author
Robin Hattersley, Editor-in-Chief
Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.
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