One of the most prestigious universities in the UK has been struck by a ‘major ransomware attack’, which bypassed antivirus software, leaving staff without access to files. University College London (UCL) was attacked yesterday, with IT security staff stating it’s possible malware entered the network via a phishing email, which was opened by several users across the university.
However, a later update from security personnel has also suggested the outbreak could’ve been caused by “users visiting a website that had been compromised rather than being spread via email attachments”. Once the ransomware was run, it encrypted files on both local and shared network drives, in what UCL believes could be a zero-day attack.
A day on and the university is still suffering the after-effects, with access to some systems still unavailable to staff and students, including, in some instances, the desktop@ucl remote access virtual desktop service, which is still running slowly.