Iain Sherriff-Scott reports: After a cyber intrusion at McMaster University in November, some Queen’s students have been notified their admissions information may have been compromised. In a letter sent from Melissa Pool of McMaster’s University Registrar to several Queen’s students who had previously applied to the University, Pool explained, “an unauthorized individual accessed a secured…
Category: Education Sector
SC school district latest victim to ransomware
Kendall Morris reports: A South Carolina school district is the latest victim to ransomware. Chester County School District posted on its Facebook page Monday that ransomware hit the district’s servers over the weekend. The post went on to say that no data has been taken or breached, and it has a specialist on site to…
University of Baltimore exposed student identity information for more than three years: auditors (UPDATED)
Jan. 29 – please see update under this post. Meredith Cohn reports on a breach involving University of Baltimore student data: The University of Baltimore has added protections to personal student data that officials had left unsecured possibly for years, according to a state audit released this month. The information on 117,793 students was kept…
San Diego County Office of Education notifies component school districts of breach of employee retirement contribution data
The San Diego County Office of Education recently notified component districts that some employee retirement contribution data had been incorrectly shared with districts. From their notification: What Happened? On December 5, 2017, a San Diego County Office of Education (“SDCOE”) employee inadvertently sent an employee retirement contribution spreadsheet, containing employee name, Social Security number, and funding…
Jail for man who hacked 1000 student email accounts in search for sexually explicit images
There’s a follow-up to a case I previously noted on this site in November, 2016. Graham Cluley reports: A 30-year-old man has sentenced to six months in prison, after he was found guilty of accessing more than 1,000 email accounts at a New York City-area university in a hunt for sexually explicit photographs and videos…
Email gaffe by Coventry University staff exposed 1,930 students’ details
The Coventry Telegraph reports that an email gaffe exposed some limited information on almost 2,000 students: Coventry University is being investigated after students’ confidential data was leaked to almost 2,000 people, the Telegraph can reveal. The university has apologised for the security breach and insists no passwords, financial or residential information was revealed. Confidential student…