Cormac Connelly-Smith reports: Students at a Dorset secondary school have had their GCSE coursework held hostage by hackers. It is believed the Sir John Colfox Academy in Bridport was targeted by a ransomware attack, which locks victims out of their personal files unless they pay hackers to unlock them. The last major ransomware attack was…
Category: Education Sector
Cyberattacker demands ransom from Northern Colorado utility
Pat Ferrier reports: When employees of the Fort Collins Loveland Water District and South Fort Collins Sanitation District got to work the morning of Feb. 11, they were locked out of technical and engineering data and drawings stored on their computers. The districts had fallen victim to a ransomware cyber attack, the second in two years, General Manager…
MI: High school students hack system to change grades, attendance
Justine Lofton reports: Students of Orchard View Schools hacked the district’s student information system and made changes to grades and attendance, according to a statement. The breach in PowerSchool appears to be isolated to Orchard View High School, Superintendent Jim Nielsen said on Wednesday, March 13. […] Parents of the “very small” group of students…
Carmel Unified School District notifies employees of phishing incident
Ouch. This isn’t a W-2 phishing attack, but in some ways, it seems even worse. Carmel Unified School District notified employees that a successful phishing attack had gained access to an employee’s email account that had “a limited number of documents.” Those documents may have contained employees’ or dependents’ information: Employee social security numbers Spouses’…
MA: Release of employees’ partial Social Security numbers troubles Worcester teachers, School Committee members
Scott O’Connell reports: Teachers and School Committee members are looking for answers from the School Department in the wake of the district’s release of personal information for thousands of school employees to a testing company last year. According to Worcester Superintendent Maureen Binienda, the district’s IT department opted to use the last four digits of…
Names, banking information accidentally shared in emails to University of Waterloo students
CBC News reports: Personal information including names, student numbers, addresses and banking information of some University of Waterloo students was accidentally sent to a mailing list of 2,000 students, the school says. The emails went out Wednesday evening. Of the emails sent to the mailing list, 15 contained some private information like names and student numbers,…