The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) said essay-writing services could “dupe students” and cash in by hacking into university websites and placing content that appears legitimate.
Essay-mill attackers typically write on student-facing pages with hyperlinks to their own websites or hijack links to legitimate services with redirects to contract cheating sites. US and Australian universities have already picked up on such activity and UK authorities could employ similar tactics, the watchdog warned.
The sector has seen a spike in ransomware attacks. The QAA and education technology not-for-profit organisation Jisc have recently collaborated to raise awareness of the emerging threat and issue advice directly to higher education institutions.
Essay mills, which are illegal in some countries such as Australia and New Zealand, make money by encouraging students to cheat in assessments.
“Essay mills present a threat to the world-class reputation...