“Alarming” Surge of Cyber Attacks Hitting Schools
Schools are being warned to review the strength of their cyber defences after children’s passports, SEN information and teacher contracts were all stolen from 14 schools and exposed on the dark web.
The BBC reported in January 2023 the attacks were carried out by a Los Angeles-based Group and — in some cases — managed to find the documents using generic search terms once they were in the system.
Pupils’ Passports Leaked
One school — The School of Oriental and African Studies — confirmed it was hacked in September last year, with over 18,000 files stolen and sold to the dark web.
Stolen information from across the schools included scanned passport images for pupils and parents going back over a decade, along with staff contracts, budget details, student bursary fund receipts and headmaster’s pay.
Last year, the hackers, Vice Society, attacked the Los Angeles Unified School District, which includes more than 1,000 schools and serves around 600,000 students. The group stole 500 gigabytes work of data, demanding a ransom to stop them from leaking it to the dark web.
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All of the sensitive pupil and staff data were leaked on the dark web, a section of the internet often used by criminals.
Schools are “easy prey” for hackers
Scott Slocombe, a Cybersecurity specialist at PSP, warned the education
and healthcare sectors should be concerned as they’re seen as “easy prey” for hackers.
“Cyber attacks on UK schools are a growing problem and most schools do not acknowledge cyber or poor security posture as a risk until it is too late. I have worked within education for 18+ years and the surge we’re seeing in cyberattacks is alarming.”
Scott added that it is “critical” for schools, universities and colleges to regularly audit security and keep staff trained.
“Even moving to software as a service (SaaS) unless configured incorrectly can still prevent a cyber or security risk. Bringing in a professional like PSP to meticulously assess their security from every angle is a small price to pay compared to a breach like the ones we are witnessing more of.”
Cyber Security Support
Want to find out more about cyber security and cyber protection? Call PSP IT on 01775 722377.
