California Northstate University student and employee data stolen

In a new listing by AvosLocker, the threat actors leak personal information that can make employees’ lives difficult for years to come.

In their leak site listing for California Northstate University, AvosLocker claims:

We have Student admissions data include Name, Social Security Number, Date Of Birth, Address, Email, Telephone. All College employees W-2 include in the sample, “2022_CNU_W2_Report_.PDF”

Why purchase the cyber-insurance with ransomware coverage policy if you don’t protect your students and staff? Ignoring will not make a problem go away 😉

As proof, AvosLocker posted the 2022 W-2 statements for the college’s President and CEO, the Vice-President and CFO, and a job applicant’s information.

They also posted a file with 393 employee W-2 forms for 2022. W-2 forms are submitted to the IRS with employees’ names, address, Social Security numbers, wages earned, amounts of state and federal tax deductions, and other types of information. Such information is often desirable to criminals looking to engage in tax refund fraud or ID theft.

AvosLocker did not post any of the student-related data it claims to have. Nor do they reveal how much more and what other employee-related information they may have exfiltrated.

Whether they will leak or sell the remaining data remains to be seen. Still, either way, the employees and students should probably immediately take steps to protect their credit reports and accounts from criminal activity.

DataBreaches was unable to find email contact information for the CEO and CFO of the university but sent an email to some of the university’s administrators and one person from the student newsletter.

There is no notice on the university’s website about any cyberattack.

Thanks to the reader who alerted DataBreaches to this listing.