Security News > 2020 > December > FBI, CISA and MS-ISAC Warn of Cyberattacks Targeting K-12 Schools
Threat actors are targeting K-12 educational institutions in the United States to deploy ransomware, steal data, or disrupt distance learning services.
In a joint alert this week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center warned of continuous attacks targeting K-12 educational institutions.
According to MS-ISAC, the number of ransomware attacks on K-12 schools has increased significantly at the beginning of the 2020 school year, accounting for over half of reported incidents in August and September, compared to less than a third between January and July.
AKO, Ryuk, Maze, Nefilim, and Sodinokibi/REvil were identified as the most common ransomware families used in attacks on K-12 schools during the first nine months of 2020.
Over the past year, the FBI, CISA and MS-ISAC say, the ZeuS Trojan and the Shlayer malware downloader were the most prevalent malware families targeting K-12 schools.