Gary Baum reports: Students’ confidential academic files were hacked and exposed at Los Angeles private school Harvard-Westlake. Archived SAT scores, GPAs, transcripts and college recommendation letters were downloaded, then sent to a group of parents and the school newspaper, as well as The Hollywood Reporter. The materials encompass approximately 150 alumni who graduated over the past…
Category: Education Sector
K–12 Cybersecurity Act Signed into Law
David Nagel reports: On Friday, Oct. 8, President Biden signed the K–12 Cybersecurity Act of 2021 into law. The act comes in response to growing data security incidents impacting K–12 schools in recent years, including a dramatic rise in ransomware and other forms of malware. On its own, the legislation is fairly simple: It authorizes the director of…
Manhasset School District Victim of Ransomware?
Frank Rizzo reports: Manhasset School District Acting Superintendent of Schools Gaurav Passi, at the Oct. 7 board of education meeting, said that the district may have been the victim of ransomware. “At this time we can confirm that we have discovered ransomware in our system,” Passi said. “And that the malicious actor—or threat actor, as…
The Dallas Independent School District breach impacted almost 800,000, but details are still lacking
On September 3, this site reported on a breach involving Dallas ISD in Texas. As noted at the time, details were lacking. But now their external counsel has provided notification to the Maine Attorney General’s Office and so we now know more: The breach, which reportedly occurred on June 8, impacted 795,497 individuals. [Note that…
Two more ransomware attacks on the education sector revealed
In August, DataBreaches.net highlighted ransomware threat actors known as Pysa who have been attacking both the medical sector and the education sector — two sectors near and dear to this site’s publisher. Today, we report on two more school districts attacked by Pysa. Consolidated High School District 230 The Consolidated High School District 230 in…
Ransomware actor tries to pressure Allen ISD by emailing parents
Benjamin Freed reports: The malicious actors behind a ransomware attack against a school district in Texas attempted to extract payment this week with what one analyst said appears to be an entirely new tactic: emailing parents of students with a threat that if school officials do not pay up, their kids’ personal information may be…