Hackers are threatening to release the personal information of students attending England's Newcastle University if the school doesn’t pay their ransom demands.

While some people may ignore obvious scams that typically lands in the junk folder of an email account, the university may want to take the latest threat to their cybersecurity seriously.

Sky News reported DoppelPaymer is behind the recent data breach. The group previously leaked personal documents connected to Elon Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX.

DoppelPaymer has already released some of the stolen data from Newcastle University online, and it appears that this may only be the beginning of more personal information hitting the web.

Although Newcastle University has contacted the police and the UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, a statement from the university revealed “it will take several weeks” to address the issue.

“We take the security of our systems extremely seriously and we were able to respond quickly to this situation,” a spokesperson said.

“The nature of the problem means this is an ongoing situation which we anticipate will take a number of weeks to address. A number of our IT services are not operating and will remain that way for the duration.”

Brett Callow, a senior researcher at ransomware specialists Emsisoft, revealed the cybercriminals used malware to access the victims’ information.

“The threat of releasing the stolen data is used as additional leverage to pressure the target into meeting the criminals’ demands,” Callow explained.

“It’s impossible for us to say what data may have been extracted during the attack. The small number of documents that have been posted are simply a warning shot: the digital equivalent of a kidnapper sending a pinky finger.”

While the university is working to regain the stolen information, it is unclear whether they will pay the ransom to protect the students’ stolen data from being leaked online.

“The investigation into the incident is still at an early stage. IT colleagues continue to work hard on the systems recovery plan, and to support the police and the National Crime Agency with their inquiries,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

“However, we will not be able to share further detail on the incident until this initial investigation has concluded.”

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