In 2018, the education sector was the number one target in cyber campaigns involving adware and Trojans, and the second-most targeted industry when it comes to ransomware campaigns, a report by Malwarebytes shows.
In the first half of 2019, this trend more or less continued, with the top threats for educational institutions being adware (43%), Trojans (25%), and backdoors (3%). The report points out that education is a popular target for threat actors because the networks of schools and universities tend to be easy to breach due to funding/staffing shortages, the presence of outdated technology, and the fact that countless personal devices belonging to students and staff are connected to these network on a daily basis.
Read more: Why adware and Trojans plague the education industry
