Check Point Research, Threat Intelligence division of Check Point Software, warns users about the so-called back to school. This is a very special period which, as usual, is accompanied by an increase in the volume of cyber attacks. In Italy, in particular, back-to-school cyber attacks are significant. Here is the data from Check Point Research:
Italy is among the main victims of back-to-school cyber attacks
As pointed out by Check Point Research, l‘Italy and its education sector are among the countries most attacked during the back to school from an IT point of view. According to the data obtained from the survey, in fact, Italy is in fourth place for cyber attacks suffered by the Education / Research sector with an average of over 3,000 attacks per week. Over the past two years, the number of such attacks has increased by +114%. Hackers are proving particularly active in this period to attack Italian targets. It should be noted that attacks on education and research organizations doubled in July compared to the average in other sectors.
Omer Dembinsky, Data Group Manager di Check Point Software, comments the results of the survey: “Students, parents and schools are attractive targets for hackers, especially because of the huge amount of data they make available. From booklets to online assignments, hackers now have multiple points of access to sensitive information and data. Data that can be used to coordinate ransomware attacks. The pandemic has imposed a great change. However, the shift to distance learning has greatly increased the potential attack surface. In other words, hackers have much more ‘room’ to infiltrate school computer networks.