The education sector is making measurable progress in defending against ransomware with fewer ransom payments, dramatically reduced costs, and faster recovery rates, according to the fifth annual Sophos State of Ransomware in Education report.
Yet, these gains are accompanied by mounting pressures on IT teams who report widespread stress, burnout, and career disruptions following attacks – nearly 40% of respondents reported dealing with anxiety.
Over the past five years, ransomware has emerged as one of the most pressing threats to education – with attacks becoming a daily occurrence. Primary and secondary institutions are seen by cybercriminals as “soft targets”- often underfunded, understaffed, and holding highly sensitive data. The consequences are severe: disrupted learning, strained budgets, and growing fears over student and staff privacy. Without stronger defences, schools risk not only losing vital resources, but also the trust of the communities they serve.
The new Sophos study demonstrates that the education sector is getting better at reacting and responding to ransomware, forcing cybercriminals to evolve their approach. Trending data from the Sophos study reveals an increase in attacks where adversaries attempt to extort money without encrypting data. Unfortunately, paying the ransom remains part of the solution for about half of all victims. However, the payment values are dropping significantly – and for those who have experienced data encryption in ransomware attacks, 97% were able to recover data in some way.
The study found several key indicators of success against ransomware in education:
- Stopping more attacks: When it comes to blocking attacks before files can be encrypted, both lower and higher education institutions reported their highest success rate in four years (67% and 38% of attacks respectively).
- Following the money: In the last year, ransom demands fell 73% (an average drop of $2,83-million), while average payments dropped from $6-million to $800 000 in lower education and from $4-million to $463 000 in higher education.
- Plummeting cost of recovery: Outside of ransom payments, average recovery costs dropped 77% in higher education and 39% in lower education. Despite this success, lower education reported the highest recovery bill across all industries surveyed.
While the education sector has made progress in limiting the impact of ransomware, serious gaps remain. In the Sophos study, 64% of victims reported missing or ineffective protection solutions; 66% cited a lack of people (either expertise or capacity) to stop attacks; and 67% admitted to having security gaps. These risks highlight the critical need for schools to focus on prevention as cybercriminals develop new techniques – including AI-powered attacks.
Highlights from the study that shed light on the gaps that still need to be addressed include:
- AI-powered threats: Lower education institutions reported that 22% of ransomware attacks had origins in phishing. With AI enabling more convincing emails, voice scams, and even deepfakes schools risk becoming test grounds for emerging tactics.
- High-value data: Higher education institutions, custodians of AI research and large language model datasets, remain a prime target with exploited vulnerabilities (35%) and security gaps the provider was not aware of (45%) as leading weaknesses that were exploited by adversaries.
- Human toll: Every institution with encrypted data reported impacts on IT staff. Over one in four staff members took leave after an attack, nearly 40% reported heightened stress, and more than one-third felt guilt they could not prevent the breach.
“Ransomware attacks in education don’t just disrupt classrooms, they disrupt communities of students, families, and educators,” says Alexandra Rose, director, CTU Threat Research at Sophos. “While it’s encouraging to see schools strengthening their ability to respond, the real priority must be preventing these attacks in the first place. That requires strong planning and close collaboration with trusted partners, especially as adversaries adopt new tactics including AI-driven threats.”