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Ransomware attacks: two universities faced cyber attack after 'zero-day' infections

Computer systems of two UK Universities were forced offline after an unknown ransomware attacked.

On 14 June, systems of both University College London and Ulster University were hijacked by the hackers in separate incidents.

Both the universities referred ransomware attack as a  zero-day vulnerability, but it is still unclear that is there any link between the two attacks or both the ransomware belonged to the same family of infections.

After the incident technical team at UCL temporarily blocked access to all shared and network drives as a temporary measurement so that there is no further spread of the malware. While on Friday, they restored the full access to the network drives, but access to the shared drives remained read-only.

But on Monday morning, UCL restored the access to all shared drives. However, they released an advisory for all its staff to remain vigilant to the possibility of another infection.

Information Services Division (ISD) department of UCL released a statement, "We apologize for the inconvenience this ransomware attack has caused and we will review this incident to ensure any learning points are used to enhance our protection in future." 
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