While businesses collectively paid $814 million in ransomware in 2024, one sector saw attacks surge 23% in the first half of 2025 alone: higher education. This sharp increase reflects the challenge of running secure operations in open, collaborative environments.
Higher education institutions are prime targets for ransomware attacks due to their open, decentralized IT environments, limited cybersecurity resources, and the high value of the data they store, including proprietary research, personal information, and financial records. With a critical need for system uptime to support academic workflows, universities are often pressured to respond quickly to attacks, making them especially attractive to cybercriminals. Earlier this year, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center suffered a breach that exposed the personal data of over 1.4 million individuals, including names, birth dates, addresses, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers.
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