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6 tips for celebrating National Online Learning Day and keeping your data safe!
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Online learning certainly has many advantages; it is convenient, cost-efficient, environmentally friendly, and helps knock down educational and socio-economic barriers. However, for the 40 million students who recently fell victim to the famous Chegg breach, online learning might just be a painful reminder of the hazards of the online atmosphere. The **Chegg cybersecurity breach** exposed the email addresses and personal information of 40 million students of the Chegg online education company and left their digital privacy vulnerable. The breach also exposed students’ physical addresses, which could potentially lead to physical security risks. Edmodo, a similar type of education platform, also experienced a cyberattack, where details from millions of user accounts were stolen and offered up for sale on the dark web.

![](https://cms.reasonlabs.com/cdn/bigstock-Developing-Programming-And-Cod-269524045-2-3787003206-1562591500571.jpg)

### What to expect in the near future

Magnifying the problem is that very little industry standardization and regulatory insight has kept pace with the rapid growth and proliferation of e-learning platforms. According to insidehighered.com, today **nearly ⅓ of all students take at least one course online**; it is this rapid rate of growth coupled with the e-learning industry’s lack of readiness for cybersecurity threats, that make e-learning platforms highly vulnerable to cyberattacks. Furthermore, it’s reasonable to assume that as the e-learning industry continues to develop, we will see a corresponding increase in the number and frequency of data breaches. Fortunately, there’s no need to panic. Even if industry regulations aren’t where they should be, there are effective measures you can take to protect your data and privacy.

### 6 Cyber Security Tips for Safe Online Learning

**Always use strong passwords**. Strong passwords are harder for hackers to crack. For a password to be strong, it should be at least 12 characters and contain numbers and symbols as well as both upper and lowercase letters.

**When you’re finished using a site, log out**. When you login to a website, a cookie, that is used to identify you, is created on your browser. When cookies are stolen, your account can be compromised. This is a problem particularly for sites that hold sensitive information, like online learning platforms which hold your personal data.

**Don’t give out personal information to someone you’ve met online.** Although this one might be a no-brainer, a reminder is always in order. Online courses are thoughtfully designed so that students can interact with each other via discussion boards, videoconferencing, and email. This is a good thing, but handing out personal information to people you’ve never actually met, no matter how well you think you know them, is never a good idea.

**Avoid saving personal data on storage devices such as Google or Dropbox.** While cloud services such as Google Drive do take strong security measures to protect your data, privacy is not necessarily their strong suit. Google’s Terms of Service, for example, explicitly give them unlimited access to your personal data. 

**Install an antivirus (AV) program on your computer**. Probably the single most important measure you can take to secure your digital privacy is to install antivirus software. You can get powerful [free computer protection](https://www.reasonsecurity.com/), like **Reason Essential**, that provides **real-time, comprehensive security with tracking protection, webcam and microphone protection** and much more. Without AV software, your password can be hacked, your bank account emptied, your computer hijacked, your personal identity stolen, etc.

**Keep your software up-to-date**. Always keep your AV program up-to-date. AV software rely on several detection methods and one is signature-based, which means that it uses a database of known signature viruses. If your AV software is not current, it might not catch newer viruses. Similarly, your operating system (OS) should be kept current as well. Hackers are always finding new and creative ways to exploit computer operating systems, so new versions must be released in order to patch security holes.

### Stay safe on National Online Learning Day

National Online Learning Day rightfully celebrates the accomplishments in online learning and the people and technology behind these accomplishments, but it should also serve as a reminder of the growing cybersecurity threat. Don’t become one of the next 40 million students whose data and privacy is exposed because of a cyberattack. Make sure you stay safe online.

![](https://cms.reasonlabs.com/cdn/shutterstock_701467699-e1577187234290.jpg)

shutterstock_701467699-e1577187234290.jpg

To start with, weird, no make that really weird, messages, ransoms, and insults, yes insults, happen. And on that note, in honor of **National Cyber Security Awareness Month**, today’s post looks at some of the craziest ransomware that we’ve seen to date, starting with the **Nemty ransomware attack**, named for the file name extension it adds to files following its encryption process. After the encryption process is complete, Nemty sends a note informing its victims that the hackers hold the encryption key to their encrypted data and that the data is recoverable for a price. Victims are then given a link to a portal to pay the ransom fee as well as a link to another website with a chat function and more information about the hacker’s demands.

Till now, this is all pretty standard ransomware behavior. What’s crazy about Nemty is that it contains the word ‘hate’ in the mutex object, which is used by hackers to avoid reinfecting the same system as well as to take control of the host’s resources. Even more odd, though, is that the Nemty code also contains a link **[to this image of Vladmir Putin](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dn4vwaRW0AY-tUu.jpg:large)** with a caption that reads _**“I added you to the list of \[insult\], but only with pencil for now”**_. Researchers later also found out that this odd bit of code was meant to send a direct message to the antivirus industry.

### Jigsaw and Cerber

Next up on the ‘crazy meter’, and probably the ‘creepy meter’ as well, is the **Jigsaw ransomware**, which was released in 2016. Jigsaw was given the Jigsaw moniker because of the popup image of “Billy the Puppet” from the horror film “Saw” that appears once Jigsaw infects the user’s system and encrypts his files. Jigsaw first encrypts the victim’s files, and then starts deleting them, and continues to delete them until a ransom fee is paid.

Its creepiness level is on a par with **Cerber** **ransomware**. Cerber is a whole new level of ransomware as it’s actually ransomware as a service (RaaS). Yes, you read correctly; the attacker “licenses” the ransomware over the Internet and splits the ransom with the developer. Cyber criminals can sign up to be Cerber affiliates and then deliver the ransomware to their heart’s content as long as they pay a 40% cut of the ransom to the developer. Everybody is happy…, except of course the victim. However, the licensing aspect isn’t the weird part. What’s weird is that this ransomware talks! One of the ransom notes that it sends has specific script that causes the computer to play a voice message that repeatedly says _**“Attention! Your documents, photos, databases, and other important files have been encrypted!”**_ Imagine sitting down with a cup of coffee, turning on your computer and hearing that message!

![](https://cms.reasonlabs.com/cdn/shutterstock_640178812-e1577201268946.jpg)

### Popcorn Time

And then there’s **Popcorn Time ransomware** (not related to the BitTorrent platform for free video streaming), which like any proper ransomware, encrypts the contents of your computer so you can’t access it unless you pay a ransom fee. The ransom fee? Either pay up in Bitcoin, approximate $770 worth at the time Popcorn Time was first launched or infect two other people with Popcorn Time. The second option, to infect two other people, is called the ‘nasty way’ in the ransomware message that Popcorn Time sends and says that if the victim sends the malicious link on to two other people and those two people install the file and pay, the original victim gets his files back without paying the ransom. This truly is a nasty option because it manages to both turns users against each other and make the users that choose this option cyber criminals themselves.

![](https://cms.reasonlabs.com/cdn/shutterstock_732549430-e1577201360685.jpg)

### Final thoughts

Reading about odd ransomware attacks might pique our curiosity and make us wonder why in the world some ransomware writers thought it wasn’t enough to make their ransomware malicious, so they had to make it crazy too, but it shouldn’t distract us from the real problem: the serious and imminent threat to our privacy posed by ransomware. **Ransomware is the fastest-growing type of cyber crime**, achieving epidemic proportions around the globe and quickly becoming the go-to method of cyber attacks for hackers. One of the reasons for the spike in ransomware is that companies often find it more expedient and cost-effective to just pay the ransom fee to get their data back. Taking this approach, however, has created an untenable trajectory; encouraging attacks that are increasingly ambitious, widespread, and costly.

As long as cyber criminals continue to benefit from encrypting data and restricting users from accessing it, they will continue to create and send ransomware to infect systems. Seriously, if you haven’t already, it’s time you got ransomware protection.

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