Kathleen Dion of Robinson & Cole writes: On January 30, 2018, EDUCAUSE, a higher education technology association, submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Education describing concerns that it had with the Federal Student Aid (“FSA”) ability to protect federal student financial aid data. EDUCAUSE’s members include IT professionals from over 1,800 colleges and…
Search Results for: education
UK: Former council worker fined for sharing personal information about schoolchildren and parents via Snapchat
From the what-the-HELL-were-they-thinking department: A former local authority education worker who illegally shared personal information about schoolchildren and their parents has been prosecuted. Samira Bouzkraoui, 24, took a screenshot of a council spreadsheet concerning children and their eligibility for free school meals before sending it to the estranged parent of one of the pupils via…
Higher Ed Users Are Less Susceptible to Phishing Scams
Meghan Bogardus Cortez reports: University end users are pretty good at identifying a scam. Only 10 percent of simulated phishing emails sent to users at education institutions were successful, a new study from Wombat Security Technologies reports. The company monitored tens of millions of simulated phishing attacks sent over the course of a year through…
UK: ICO releases Q3 data security incident trends
The Information Commissioner’s Office has released Q3 statistics on data protection incidents reported to their office. Not surprisingly, reports were up. Some of their key statistics: Central government sector reports rose by 178% from Q2 (from 9 to 25). Incidents involving a failure to redact data increased from 1 to 11. Education sector incidents rose by…
One Plugin, Over 4,200 Victims – When Thousands of Government Websites Were Hijacked to Mine Monero
Rafia Shaikh reports: Thousands of websites around the world were targeted by cryptojackers over the weekend to mine Monero. The targets included websites run by the US and UK governments that were secretly hijacked by attackers to mine cryptocurrency using a compromised plugin, Browsealoud. Over 4,200 websites are in the victims list [link], including The City University of…
Scottish National Party hit out after investigation reveals data security breaches in Whitehall
Kieran Andrews reports: Lost confidential papers, leaked email addresses and the release of sensitive personal information were just some of the 4000 “data security incidences” recorded by the UK Government recorded last year. Data uncovered by the SNP has revealed that in one case an assault victim’s new name and address was inadvertently sent to…