The University of Westminister has been targeted with nearly 20,000 malicious emails every month since October 2020, according to data from a Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request.

The figures, analysed by the Parliament Street think tank, reveal that there were nearly 290,000 email attacks blocked by the university between October 2020 to December 2021, with spam attacks making up 92 per cent of threats.

Around 1,100 phishing attacks – where a malicious actor sends fake messages to trick victims into disclosing personal information – were neutralised every month over the same period.

The University also revealed that it successfully blocked 28 ransomware email attacks, as well as 394 business email compromise (BEC) attacks, where a cyber attacker infiltrates a company’s email system and poses as an employee, sending targeted attacks asking for money to company staff.

Virus and scam attacks made up a further 2,648 blocked attacks by the University, since they began taking record of malicious email types in 2020.

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