Peru-based Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola (USIL), also called St. Ignatius of Loyola University, has allegedly been breached. Hacker has claimed to have access to the personal information of current and potential university students and has threatened to leak it.
BetterCyber tweeted about the Loyola University data breach and released a screenshot from the breach forum post claiming the data leak.
Loyola University data breach
The post did not reveal any other details about the Loyola University data breach in terms of the size of the stolen files, systems impacted, services disrupted, details in the files, etc. It stated that the database held information about the Loyola University students and those who would be joining.
The Cyber Express reached out to St. Ignatius of Loyola University for a statement, however, is yet to receive a response.
The website of the university was accessible at the time of writing. However, emails sent to the official id received a failure notice response.
Failed negotiations or pressure tactics?
It can be inferred from the alleged Loyola University data breach that the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola likely suffered a ransomware attack and denied paying a ransom, following which the hackers released the data on the breach forums. However, it could also be a way to cause fear or threaten the target to pay a ransom.
In recent years, there have been several cyberattacks targeting the education sector. A report published in October 2022, revealed that the education sector experienced a 44% increase in cyber attacks.
St. Ignatius of Loyola University is a private university that was founded by the former Peruvian Vice President Raúl Diez Canseco. It has several notable alumni, including Aldo Corzo, the football player, Vivian Baella, the volleyball player, and Kelin Poldy Kroll, the model and pageant winner, among others.
Ransomware attacks on Peru
Several large scale cyberattacks have been executed in in Costa Rica and Peru by ransomware groups in the past. Conti ransomware group has repeatedly targeted Peru and Costa Rica with ransomware attacks last year.
Peru’s National Directore of Intelligence, which is the nation’s intelligence agency, was attacked, which led to the exfiltration of 9.1 GB of data.
The group said that the intelligence agency denied ‘cooperating’ with the ransomware group and that they have ‘Bdoors in almost all state institutions of their state.’ The group claimed to have larger plans for cyberattacks. However, they noted on their website that they do not launch DDoS attacks.
According to a Kaspersky report, the Republic of Peru suffered brute-force attacks that target systems by guessing passwords of user accounts, and vulnerability exploitation, among others.
Researchers noticed an increasing number of threats on the Peruvian network on March 12 and 14. February 16 was among the days when maximum threats followed by March 3.
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