Rebecca PY MALAYSIA, 2 SEPTEMBER 2026 – Identity-based attack techniques were utilized in 85% of ransomware attacks against educational institutions over the past year, according to the annual State of Ransomware in Education 2026 report released today by global cybersecurity firm Sophos. Surpassing the cross-sector average of 79%, the findings highlight how stolen credentials, phishing, and malicious emails have become the primary entry points for cybercriminals targeting schools and universities.
The report revealed that malicious email served as the top technical root cause of attacks in both lower education (31%) and higher education (29%). Additionally, 77% of higher education institutions and 71% of lower education organizations identified their ransomware incident as their single most significant identity attack.
“Education institutions remain attractive targets because they hold vast amounts of personal data while operating under significant resource constraints,” said Ross McKerchar, chief information security officer at Sophos.
“Today’s attackers don’t need a crowbar when they can steal the keys. Identity compromise has become one of the most effective paths into an organization, and AI is only increasing the speed, scale and sophistication of these attacks. The most resilient institutions are the ones that treat identity as a core security control and combine it with integrated detection and response capabilities.”
Key findings from the global survey include:Operational and Human Resource Shortages:
Higher education institutions reported significant gaps in technical capability, with 53% lacking the internal expertise to detect and stop attacks in time, compared to 35% across all sectors. Lower education organizations cited human error (52%), lack of protection (47%), unknown security gaps (42%), and limited capacity (41%) as primary contributing factors.
Spike in Data Encryption: Data encryption rates in lower education more than doubled year over year, surging from 29% in 2025 to 61% in 2026. Overall, 58% of ransomware attempts across the education sector resulted in encrypted data.
Backup Reliance and Extended Recovery Times: Educational organizations relied heavily on backups to restore data, used by 77% of lower education and 69% of higher education institutions. However, recovery remained slow, with 26% of educational institutions needing one to three months to fully recover—nearly double the 14% cross-sector average. Lower education suffered the longest delays, with 31% taking a month or more.
Financial and Personal Toll: While median ransom demands dropped for a second consecutive year to $775,200, actual ransom payments rose by $15,000. Total recovery costs averaged $2.26 million per incident, exceeding the $1.7 million cross-sector benchmark. The strain also impacted personnel: 39% of organizations reported staff absences due to stress, and leadership turnover reached 29% in higher education following an attack.
The report is based on an independent survey of 226 IT and cybersecurity leaders across 17 countries, conducted between January and March 2026.