Education (K-12)

Who: Shore Regional High School District, located in West Long Branch, New Jersey, with 573 students in grades 9-12.

What: A data breach discovered in April 2023 may have exposed the names, social security numbers, dates of birth, financial information, and medical and health insurance information of students. The breach involved unauthorized removal of files from the district's network.

Impact: The breach potentially exposed sensitive personal information of students, posing risks of identity theft and financial fraud. While there is no evidence of misuse, the district is offering identity monitoring and protection services to affected individuals. This incident highlights the increasing frequency and severity of cyber attacks on educational institutions.

Read the full article HERE

Ransomware with physical impact!

Pawtucketville Memorial Elementary School of Lowell, MA, released its indoor air quality assessment, prepared by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Mold growth in the elementary school caused a delay in its opening due to “conditions that appear to have to have been brought on this past summer by a combination of lack of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system controls, due to a cyberattack of the City of Lowell’s computer systems.”

This is just one of a number of schools that have suffered structural and environmental damage due to ransomware. Others, including in a school district in Ohio were forced to cancel classes due to a TrickBot infection that required the re-imaging of 1,000 computers and laptops.

Source: https://cisoseries.com/cyber-security-headlines-russia-microsoft-breach-jpmorganchase-hacking-increase-teamviewer-still-abused/

The Clark County School District (CCSD) in Nevada is dealing with a potentially massive data breach, as hackers email parents their children's' data that was allegedly stolen during a recent cyberattack.

CCSD is the fifth largest school district in the US, with over 300,000 students and 15,000 teachers.

On October 16, CCSD confirmed it suffered a cyberattack earlier this month, stating threat actors gained access to the district's email servers.

"On approximately October 5, 2023, Clark County School District ("CCSD") became aware of a cybersecurity incident impacting its email environment," reads a statement from the Clark County School District.

"Upon discovering the incident, CCSD immediately engaged a team of forensic experts to investigate the incident and ensure that CCSD operates within a safe and remediated email environment. CCSD is also cooperating with law enforcement's investigation."

"Thus far, the investigation revealed that the unauthorized party accessed limited personal information related to a subset of students, parents, and employees. CCSD is working diligently to identify all individuals whose information was impacted by this incident."

In response to the attack, CCSD disabled access to its Google Workspace from external accounts and has forced reset all student's passwords.

Since then, things have taken a turn for the worse, with parents reporting they are receiving emails from the threat actors warning that their child's data was leaked.

Read the full article HERE

After a cybersecurity audit mistakenly reset everyone’s password, a high school changed every student’s password to “Ch@ngeme!” giving every student the chance to hack into any other student’s account, according to emails obtained by TechCrunch.

Last week, Oak Park and River Forest (OPRF) High School in Illinois told parents that during a cybersecurity audit, “due to an unexpected vendor error, the system reset every student’s password, preventing students from being able to log in to their Google account.”

“To fix this, we have reset your child’s password to Ch@ngeme! so that they can once again access their Google account. This password change will take place beginning at 4 p.m. today,” the school, which has around 3,000 students, wrote in an email dated June 22. “We strongly suggest that your child update this password to their own unique password as soon as possible.”

Needless to say, giving everyone the same password is not how an organization should force a password reset. The usual procedure is to force log out every user, and then prompt them to change their password the next time they try to log in.

Manning Peterson, the mother of an OPRF student, replied that “this is terribly insecure and you have just invited every single students [sic] accounts to get hacked.”

Peterson said that after this email, she tried to reset her son’s password but it wasn’t possible.

Read the full article HERE

MINNEAPOLIS -- Hackers have breached Minnesota Department of Education data, obtaining information on tens of thousands of students, the majority of which are in the state's foster care system.

The department said they had been notified of a potential vulnerability in their file transfer software MOVEit on May 31, and 24 files were breached that same day.

The files contained information of 95,000 students placed in foster care throughout the state, including their demographic information, names, dates of birth, and county of placement.

Other information accessed includes similar demographic data on 124 students who qualified for Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer, 29 students taking PSEO classes at Hennepin Technical College, and five students who took a particular Minneapolis Public School bus route.

The breach is part of a global cyberattack on MOVEit, attributed to the Russian hacker group Clop, who are also suspected of targeting the BBC, British Airways, the Nova Scotia Government, and the University of Rochester.

Read the full article HERE