On March 24, 2024, students and members of staff at the University of Winnipeg attempted to log in to their university system, only to find themselves victims of a cyberattack. Midterm exams loomed, work halted, wifi dropped, email access was revoked, and critical records became unreachable. The university had fallen for a tailored ransomware attack.
Hackers had successfully infiltrated the university’s networks and encrypted essential data, including student and staff records, position applicants and awardees records, among many other record types. Frustrated victims revealed that the university appeared to do little in response and essentially let the thieves take the data.
No payment was confirmed, but in an act of submission, the university offered credit monitoring, temporarily shutting down systems and enforcing password resets which is consistent with the common Canadian public-sector stance of not paying ransoms. So, everything worked out? No.
While the university eventually noticed the attack, avoiding ethical and financial complications for ransom payment, the damage was already done. Not only did the sensitive data (social insurance numbers, financial records, addresses, etc.) get stolen, the university’s reputation also suffered. The attackers successfully exfiltrated around two decades worth of personal information affecting thousands of current and former students, faculty, and staff, and thus, in the eyes of many, the university had no ability to protect the digital lives of its community members. Would you want to work or study there?
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Canadian universities, with their rich well of data, open networks, decentralized systems and research data, have become a high-value target for cybercriminals. From sophisticated ransomware attacks to espionage, each year, the threats grow in both number and complexity. Yet, many institutions remain unprepared and are left scrambling when an attack inevitably occurs.
Common Threats and Attack Vectors
Ransomware
According to research conducted by Comparitech, a cybersecurity and online privacy product review website, ransomware attacks on universities increase by 23% each year. This form of attack is becoming a major issue for universities across Canada, as they increasingly find themselves targeted. Ransomware attacks involve stealing and then encrypting the university data, which they then use to demand ransom payment for its release. This often leads to disruption of classes and delays in exams, but also exposes years of personal information, research data, and institutional records.
Spoofing
Spoofing is a common tactic, where a person or program is used to disguise an attacker’s identity to make it appear to be from a legitimate source so they can steal data or infiltrate a system. Universities are particularly susceptible to spoofing attacks due to the size of the network and largely under-trained user community.
Phishing
Another common attack on universities is phishing. It involves sending fictitious emails, targeting consumers, in this case, students and members of staff, in the hopes of tricking them into giving away sensitive information.
In this environment, it would often be created to resemble the school’s IT department, recruitment departments, and financial aid offices, or other faculty members. The content includes fake acceptance letters, job offers, password reset requests, and links to spoofed university login pages. This form of attack ultimately exploits the trust within educational institutions to deceive students and faculty, especially when timed to coincide with key dates in the academic calendar.
The beginning of each semester brings new and returning students and an increase in administrative activity and payment/financial aid deadlines, creating the ideal environment for cybercriminals to launch phishing attacks.
Spear Phishing
This is a form of phishing attack, but spear-phishing attacks target particular individuals or groups to steal information or install malware on their systems. These include professors, department heads, and certain individuals with access to student records.
Smart Campuses
Many universities are incorporating technology-based solutions to enhance various aspects of university life. These solutions range from learning to administration and campus amenities. Since they heavily rely on IoT devices, this can lead to compromised networks and data breaches, as these devices are often not properly secured.
Cloud Misconfigurations
With the move to cloud-based tools (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, AWS, etc.), universities sometimes misconfigure access settings—accidentally exposing sensitive files, research, or student data to the public internet or unauthorized users.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attacks
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks are a common type of cyberattack where the attacker floods a server with internet traffic to prevent legitimate users, in this case students and staff members, from accessing the online services and sites.
As most academic institutions rely on online platforms, like learning management systems (e.g., Moodle, Blackboard, Canvas), registration portals, email servers, and digital libraries; a well-timed DDoS attack during exam periods, course registration, or tuition payment deadlines can paralyse a university’s ability to operate, causing widespread confusion and disruption.
SQL Injection Attacks
This is a common web vulnerability that enables attackers to manipulate database queries created by web applications. This allows the attacker to bypass security measures to view data that normally would be restricted. In extreme cases, attackers can also modify or delete data, making permanent changes to the application’s content, functionality or behaviour.
Case Study
University of Calgary: Ransomware Attack (2016)
This attack took place in May 2016 at the University of Calgary. The university was the victim of a major ransomware attack that disrupted multiple systems. The attack encrypted large volumes of data, making the systems inaccessible to users across the university. The systems included email, file servers and other essential services. After ten days, the university ultimately decided to go against expert advice and paid the ransom of $20,000 CAD in Bitcoin. It cited the need to protect academic work and ongoing research as a key factor in deciding to pay. After this attack, the university worked hard to strengthen its security measures, enhance backup systems, improve incident response plans and improve employee awareness.
Key Takeaways:
- Even large, well-funded universities can be caught off guard by relatively simple ransomware attacks.
- Timely backups and segmented networks could reduce the need to pay ransom.
- Public transparency about the attack and response helped other Canadian institutions prepare for similar threats.
Consequences of A Successful Attack on Universities
Whether it’s navigating tight budgets, stressed IT teams, or pressures to adapt to new technologies, a major cyberattack can have a devastating effect for colleges and universities. Ranging from operational disruptions, reputational damages, lawsuits, and long-term educational setbacks, wherein, in some cases, the road to recovery is long, costly, and not guaranteed.
Operational Disruption and Productivity Loss
Successful attacks can have an immediate effect on remote students, financial transactions, vendors, administrative activities, grade management systems, and other key elements of online operations. In severe cases, schools can halt activities altogether for days and even weeks until they can recover. For students, these disruptions can hinder academic progress and create uncertainty during critical periods, such as course registration or graduation.
Financial Loss
A successful cyberattack, especially ransomware, can result in direct and indirect financial losses. After the hackers target the school for its sensitive banking information and carry out unauthorized transactions. Beyond that, the cost of recovery can also be exorbitant. A well-implemented recovery plan can include:
Enhancing existing cybersecurity infrastructures
- Breach investigation and source identification
- Providing compensation or credit monitoring for affected students and staff members
- Rebuilding, updating, or replacing compromised systems and hardware
- Providing more in-depth training
Furthermore, in some cases, the institution’s reputation may suffer so much that prospective students choose to enrol in other schools that have better security systems in place and fewer donations from alumni.
Reputational Damage
A successful data breach can severely tarnish a university’s reputation, reducing the trust amongst students, staff, parents and the community in general. Especially when made aware to the public, news articles, online negative attention, social media backlash, and the lasting perception of the university’s negligence can have a harsh and long-lasting effect. As a result, fewer students may choose to study at the university, leading to a decrease in enrollment, and the withdrawal of funding and increased difficulty attracting and retaining top faculty, staff and researchers.
Legal Consequences
Similarly to government agencies and corporate bodies, universities can also face significant legal consequences following a successful cyberattack. They therefore need to follow data protection laws and may have to pay regulatory fines or penalties if investigations reveal any negligence in protecting private and sensitive information.
Furthermore, affected individuals may file lawsuits, seeking compensation for mishandling or exposure of their personal data. This can result in costly settlements, increased scrutiny, and mandatory compliance reforms, further straining institutional resources and damaging public trust.
What can Colleges and Universities do to Defend Against Cyberattacks?
Implement Zero Trust
Zero trust refers to a security model that operates on a never trust and always verify principle. Any new devices or users that need to connect to or access the system should be extensively vetted to verify their identity. Elements of zero trust include multi-factor authentication, access control, continuous verification, identity control, and least-privilege access to limit data exposure and to detect any attempts at unauthorized access. On campuses, this should involve course materials, administrative systems, online learning platforms and more.
Implement Regular Monitoring and Early Detection
When improving existing security measures, it is important to implement a system to regularly check for signs of infiltration and to be aware of any existing vulnerabilities, so when an attack does take place, early detection will reduce any damage that will occur.
Data Encryption
Data encryption converts data from a readable, plaintext format into an unreadable, encoded format: ciphertext. It plays a vital role in protecting the university’s sensitive data. This includes student records, research findings, grant proposals, financial details, health information, among others. By converting data into an unreadable format, if unauthorized users gain access, it would still be protected.
Educate everyone on security best practices
This training and education should be extended to everyone on campus. Students, faculty members, and educators alike. Providing cybersecurity awareness training on a regular schedule would help to reduce human errors, phishing attacks, and credential theft. Furthermore, when students and staff members join the university, institutes should encourage them to create strong and unique passwords for accessing school online resources.
Why is securing academia so challenging?
Higher education institutions operate in a unique environment, leading to unique security challenges that set them apart from other educational bodies. The culture of open networks, open campuses, BYOD networks, multi-compliance demands, and complex operations creates a unique security landscape where universities are burdened with the challenge to balance their academic mission of openness with the need to protect sensitive data, intellectual property, and critical infrastructure, where each institution requires a unique solution.
Let’s examine the unique security challenges in academia.
Culture of Open Campuses
Colleges and universities are the grounds for sharing knowledge and, as such, take pride in maintaining an open and inviting campus. Unlike corporate offices, which enforce strict access control, academic institutes often allow anyone to walk in. Students, faculty members, visiting scholars, and the general public. This openness can create security vulnerabilities as it increases the attack surface, making it easier for malicious actors to access weak points within the network. This creates a challenge of balancing the need for implementing security measures without compromising the university’s culture of openness and accessibility.
Diverse Population Management
While allowing access to many individuals on its campus, each also interacts with the network differently and thus requires different specific levels of security access. A blanket approach to security is therefore ineffective. For example, persons use personal devices to connect to campus networks; in other cases, staff members might need remote access to sensitive research data.
Securing Research Facilities and Intellectual Property
Universities are also hubs for innovation and research, often receiving funding to conduct futuristic work in fields like medicine, AI, engineering, cybersecurity, and renewable energy. This funding often comes from the government, private organisations or even foreign entities, making it very valuable and as a result, it is a prime target for cybercriminals and nation-state actors. Any intellectual property (IP) produced, ranging from unpublished research data to prototypes, can have significant academic, commercial, or national security implications. This research and assets require specialised protection beyond basic security measures.
Budget Constraints
This is a common issue for many organisations, especially higher education institutes. There is often a general lack of investments in security, resulting in inadequate measures being implemented, restrictions in the ability to hire specialised cybersecurity personnel, and no funding left to invest in advanced security infrastructure. As a result, IT departments are often understaffed and under-resourced, struggling to keep up with evolving threats.
Legacy Systems
Legacy systems are also prevalent in higher education. Research labs and administrative offices often fail to update software and hardware in a timely manner, either due to a general lack of awareness, the compatibility requirements with the specialised tools, or the cost of replacement being too high. These legacy systems also often lack vendor support and are thus more susceptible to exploitation.
Final Thoughts
Cyberattacks are becoming less of an isolated incident. They are an increasing threat to academic institutions worldwide. As universities continue to become more reliant on digital systems and infrastructure to manage daily operations and conduct research and online lessons, they also increasingly become prime targets for many cyberattacks. The environment itself is characterised by openness, collaborations, and a diverse user base, creating a unique set of vulnerabilities that the typical cybersecurity model often struggles to manage.
Throughout this article, we identified key factors as to why universities are targeted, the most common types of attacks and consequences when the attacks occur, especially when the institutions are unprepared, and we examined real-world attacks, illustrating how varied the impact can be, ranging from financial loss, operational disruption, reputational damage, and compromised research. We also explored how institutions can respond to help reduce the attack surface.
Investing in better infrastructure, implementing role-based access control and zero-trust models and providing user education for staff members and students. Despite efforts made, the gap between understanding what to do and having the resources, expertise, and planning to do it effectively remains an issue for many institutions.
Ultimately, protecting sensitive research, student and staff data, and the digital tools that power education must be prioritised and treated with the same level of urgency as physical campus safety. We can learn from past incidents that the stakes are too high to rely on built-in solutions and reactive measures alone. That is where we at Oppos come in to assist. If your university is struggling to navigate these or any other cybersecurity challenges and is looking for a team of experts to support it, our highly trained members of staff are here to help!
Whether it is a full risk assessment, guidance on how to remain in compliance, incident response planning, or tabletop exercises, we at Oppos Cybersecurity can create a tailored solution to protect your research environment.
Contact us today to learn how we can help protect your institution from evolving cyber threats—so you can focus on what matters most: education, innovation, and student success.
