Comparitech: Ransomware Attacks on Us Schools and Colleges Cost $6.62bn in 2020

According to Comparitech, "Schools and colleges have suffered an estimated 1,387 days of downtime due to ransomware attacks with around 9,525 days spent on recovery efforts. 22 schools/colleges revealed the amount involved in their recovery efforts with nearly $19.2 million spent by these entities in total."

Texas and California schools led with the most reported attacks.

Additional Report Key Findings (stats from 2020):

• 77 individual ransomware attacks on schools and colleges – a 20 percent decrease from 2019

• Over 1,740 separate schools and colleges were potentially affected–a 39 percent increase from 2019

• 1,358,035 individual students could have been impacted–a 67 percent increase from 2019

• Ransomware amounts varied from $10,000 to over $1 million

• Downtime varied from minimal disruption (thanks to frequent data backups) to months upon months of recovery time

• On average, schools lose nearly 7 days to downtime and spend 55.4 days recovering from the attack

• Hackers received at least $1,909,058 in ransom payments

• The overall cost of these attacks is estimated at around $6.62 billion

For more information, view the full report here.