Hackers are targeting kindergartens for profit, warns government

Kindergartens and elementary schools struggling to educate children amid sustained coronavirus-induced remote learning can officially add a new woe to their list: hackers. 

The U.S. government on Thursday issued a statement warning that criminals are specifically going after schools' distance-learning programs. And while this fits a well-established pattern, the latest alert from the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) makes it clear that it's no longer just colleges and universities that need to be on their guard. 

"The FBI, CISA, and MS-ISAC assess malicious cyber actors are targeting kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12) educational institutions, leading to ransomware attacks, the theft of data, and the disruption of distance-learning services," reads the statement. "Cyber actors likely view schools as targets of opportunity, and these types of attacks are expected to continue through the 2020/2021 academic year." Read more...