Identity-Based Attacks Drive 85% of Education Ransomware: Sophos Report
Sophos, a global cybersecurity leader, today released its annual State of Ransomware in Education 2026 report, which found that identity-based attack techniques were used in 85% of ransomware attacks against education institutions. Those techniques include malicious email, phishing, compromised credentials and brute force attacks. The 85% rate exceeded the cross-sector average of 79%, underscoring the role identity compromise continues to play in ransomware incidents targeting lower and higher education institutions.
Malicious email was the leading technical root cause of ransomware attacks in both lower education (31%) and higher education (29%). The report also found that 77% of higher education organizations and 71% of lower education organizations said their ransomware incident was also their most significant identity attack.
Education institutions also recover more slowly from attacks. Lower and higher education institutions are roughly twice as likely as the cross-sector average to need one to three months to fully recover. Lower...
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