The tele-education sector, the target of several computer attacks
No sector is visibly spared from cybercrime.
Like the hospital sector, and the business sector, the field of teachers in particular distance education has also been a victim and is still the victims of the wrath of the shadow attackers. Indeed, it is around the National Centre for Distance Education, the CNED to be worried about computer security issues and this since February.
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Since the beginning of containment and long before, several public institutions, and other services, have consistently reported attacks from a variety of backgrounds. Like the public administrations of the hospitals in Paris and Marseille, the coronavirus crisis has facilitated a number of actions against information systems dedicated to education. In recent months, this public operator, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education to ensure continuity in general education, has reported several cyber attacks. These various Cyberattacks have been relatively dangerous and significant in terms of their impact. "At the end of February (another time, some would say!), the CNED had to face an attack by ransomware, or ransomware. Through lack of vigilance, malware has managed to infect about 80 back office servers and encrypt all of their data, under the threat of paying a ransom. Challenges described it. And for this, the Public Fare Education Agency filed a complaint, while assuring that it had complied with the recommendation of ANSSI (National Agency for Security of Information Systems). That is, he did not give in to the blackmail of cyber criminals. The organization says it has not paid any ransom to cyber criminals. According to the recommendations of the security agency, when a structure is the target of ransomware, simply restore its system based on the data backup made just before the malware is taken into possession. Those who, of course, implie that the organization had an obligation to make regular backups of its system.
Cybercriminals did not stop there for the public distance education body. Indeed, they returned to the charge during the month of March, but this time, with a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). Just at the time of the implementation of the Confinement in general. During this period there has been an increase in this kind of crude attacks and without any particular sophistication. This is because Internet consumption has increased a lot and this large flow can be used as well. This type of attack involves overworking a server with multiple requests that it cannot process at once, making it unusable. This apparently materializes by sending massive queries with the goal of simply exhausting the system. And this is certainly successful, with the amount of data that is now transiting the web. Saturating bandwidth these days, will not be something difficult enough for cyber criminals. The consequences for a distance education system are terrible. Taking into account the responsibility of the public body. He was keen to point out the fact that has long been targeted by these kinds of cyberattacks. But "the CNED says it has finally been able to control attacks through the RENATER (NAtional Telecommunications Network for Technology, Education and Research), which is the telecom network connecting universities and research centres to institutions and ministries. Challenges noted.
The platforms that have been most targeted are "My Class at Home," a space that is supposed to allow students to continue their education from home, while staying in touch with their teachers during the coronavirus pandemic, and the organization's Digital WorkSpace. According to Challenges, the providers responsible for hosting these platforms were able to repel these cyberattacks.
In short, the issue of cybersecurity extends to all branches. Public bodies, on the other hand, must also increase their vigilance. They are also requested in the same way as corporate information systems. This puts them on the front line of cyber-evil. Vigilance is therefore required at all levels.
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