Lincoln University, a predominantly black university in Illinois, will be closed this week 157 years later, saying it couldn’t stand the financial challenges of last year’s coronavirus pandemic and ransomware attacks.
“The loss of history, career, and community of students and graduates is immeasurable,” said university president David Gerlach in a statement.
Gerlach declined further comments after being contacted by email on Monday.
Founded in 1865 and named after Abraham Lincoln, the university has survived the 1918 influenza pandemic, multiple depressions, and two world wars.
However, according to the statement, the pandemic has led to lower enrollments, forcing universities to invest heavily in new technologies. Then, in December 2021, a ransomware attack blocked access to school data and stopped its recruitment, retention, and funding campaigns.
Lincoln College in Lincoln, Illinois, doesn’t say how much it ultimately paid to regain access to the data, but Gerlach says he paid the Chicago Tribune a ransom of less than $ 100,000. The ransomware attack occurred in Iran, he told Tribune.
When access to university data was restored in March, forecasts showed a “significant under-registration” requiring “transformative donations or partnerships to maintain Lincoln University beyond the current semester.” rice field. Gerlach told The Tribune last month that Lincoln would need $ 50 million to stay open. Money didn’t come true.
“If we had more time, we could have found someone, but that’s all out of our control,” said Associate Professor Annette Rotor in a Facebook post with thousands of students. He said he was comforting the teacher. And a graduate who worked to keep the school open.
In recent years, cybercriminals have targeted schools and universities that are often not ready to prevent ransomware attacks where victims’ digital data is encrypted until they pay.
Brett Callow, a threat analyst at Emsisoft, a New Zealand-based cybersecurity company, said ransomware attackers only go everywhere to make money.
“If they find that a particular sector is particularly beneficial, they will hit this over and over again,” Callow said. Schools need to take precautions, such as implementing multi-factor authentication and quickly installing security updates, he said.
Last year, 1,043 schools in the United States were victims of a ransomware attack, according to Emsisoft’s analysis. Of those, 26 were colleges.
Henry Stover, chairman and chief executive officer of the Board of Directors of Universities and Colleges, said that technology affects almost every part of an academic company, including financial and health information for students and faculty, and data on donors. Give. ” He added that losing that data could be catastrophic.
Austin Berglas, Global Head of Professional Services for New York City-based cyber defense company Blue Voyant, said the average cost of a college ransom attack was around $ 115,000, less than in other sectors. increase. Colonial Pipeline, the operator of a key fuel pipeline on the East Coast, has paid $ 5 million to recover data stolen in last year’s ransomware attack.
According to Bargrass, payment decisions depend on factors such as whether the target agency has caught the breach and stopped it in time.
The November 2020 attack on Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland shut down the system for three days and erased data such as grades and lessons. According to NPR’s affiliate WYPR, the cost of repairing damage from an attack was close to $ 10 million in November. The district does not say what the request was or whether the ransom was paid.
Some of the sixth-largest victims in the United States, such as Broward County Public School District in Florida, have publicly refused to pay. In March 2021, hackers demanded $ 40 million to keep sensitive data such as financial contracts and social security numbers private. A month later, cybercriminals posted about 26,000 files online, according to Sun-Sentinel in South Florida.
After choosing to pay the ransom, Lincoln College and its students launched the final social media and funding campaign, including the GoFundMe page, in an attempt to save the school.
However, with the announcement that the school will be completely closed on Friday, Lincoln students, faculty and graduates struggled to accept the loss.
Arielle Williams, 26, who graduated with an associate degree in communications in 2017, said in a direct Instagram message that the closure was devastating.
“My college memories are very close to my heart,” she said, adding that she met many of her close friends in Lincoln. “It’s bittersweet,” she added. “When I have a kid, I won’t be able to go back and show the kid.”