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posted by martyb on Monday June 29 2020, @11:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the backups-are-your-friend dept.

How hackers extorted $1.14m from a US university:

A leading medical-research institution working on a cure for Covid-19 has admitted it paid hackers a $1.14m (£910,000) ransom after a covert negotiation witnessed by BBC News.

The Netwalker criminal gang attacked University of California San Francisco (UCSF) on 1 June.

IT staff unplugged computers in a race to stop the malware spreading.

And an anonymous tip-off enabled BBC News to follow the ransom negotiations in a live chat on the dark web.

[...] At first glance, its dark-web homepage looks like a standard customer-service website, with a frequently asked questions (FAQ) tab, an offer of a "free" sample of its software and a live-chat option.

But there is also a countdown timer ticking down to a time when the hackers either double the price of their ransom, or delete the data they have scrambled with malware.

Also at Security Week.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 30 2020, @12:28PM (3 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 30 2020, @12:28PM (#1014461) Journal
    Credentialed is not educated.
  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 30 2020, @12:37PM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 30 2020, @12:37PM (#1014463) Journal

    Even if flawed in form, I get what you say.

    My answer: formal education doesn't sell credentials (otherwise why would they take the cost of schooling to deliver credentials on a piece of paper) and it is not impossible for a school to actually deliver education.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 30 2020, @01:27PM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 30 2020, @01:27PM (#1014485) Journal

      formal education doesn't sell credentials (otherwise why would they take the cost of schooling to deliver credentials on a piece of paper)

      I think the obvious answer comes in the form of whose cost is the cost of schooling? When such credentials are in high demand, it's the students (or in the US a combination of students and government) paying not the university. When demand drops, it's the colleges paying for it.

      and it is not impossible for a school to actually deliver education.

      "not impossible for" doesn't mean "does". All schools even the online degree mills has some capability to deliver education. The failure doesn't come from lack of capability.

      My take is that ideological-based ignorance is the driver. For an outlier, consider the case of Evergreen State College. Back in May 2017, a Professor Bret Weinstein protested a change in a college holiday ("the day of absence", originally during which minorities would voluntarily leave the campus for a day, which had just been turned around so that white Caucasians were asked to voluntarily leave the campus instead). Soon protests [huffpost.com] and considerable lawbreaking erupted with the offending professor leaving with a large cash settlement and enrollment down more than a quarter over three years (from 3881 during the 2016-2017 school year to 2854 in the 2019-2020 school year).

      The school gave in to ignorance for ideological reasons and we're seeing the consequences in student enrollment. That's why I think "students stop paying" is a real thing.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 30 2020, @01:49PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 30 2020, @01:49PM (#1014496) Journal
        I'll note that the degree mills come from government paying lip service to the ideology of the primacy of college education. It's very important for everyone to try for an education credential, but far from important whether there's any value to that credential or whether the student actually gets the credential.