Rich in digitized data, the nation's schools are prime targets for far-flung criminal hackers, who are assiduously locating and scooping up sensitive files.
The confidential documents stolen from schools and dumped online by ransomware gangs are raw, intimate and graphic. They describe student sexual assaults, psychiatric hospitalizations, abusive parents, truancy — even suicide attempts.
People are also reading… Often strapped for cash, districts are grossly ill-equipped not just to defend themselves but to respond diligently and transparently when attacked, especially as they struggle to help kids catch up from the pandemic and grapple with shrinking budgets. Even when schools catch a ransomware attack in progress, the data are typically already gone. That was what Los Angeles Unified School District did last Labor Day weekend, only to see the private paperwork of more than 1,900 former students — including psychological evaluations and medical records — leaked online. Not until February did district officials disclose the breach's full dimensions, noting the complexity of notifying victims with exposed files up to three decades old.
Ransomware likely has affected well over 5 million U.S. students by now, with district attacks on track to rise this year, said analyst Allan Liska of the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Nearly one in three U.S. districts had been breached by the end of 2021, according to a survey by the Center for Internet Security, a federally funded nonprofit.
The criminals in the Minneapolis theft were especially aggressive. They shared links to the stolen data on Facebook, Twitter, Telegram and the dark web, which standard browsers can't access. A handwritten note naming three students involved in one of the sexual abuse complaints was featured for a time on YouTube competitor Vimeo, which promptly took down the video.
"The family is beyond horrified to learn that this highly sensitive information is now available in perpetuity on the internet for the child's future friends, romantic interests, employers, and others to discover," said Jeff Storms, an attorney for one of the families. It is AP policy not to identify sexual abuse victims.
School nurse Angie McCracken had by early April already received 10 alerts through her credit card that her Social Security number and birth date were circulating on the dark web. She wondered about her graduating 18-year-old."If their identity is stolen, just how hard is that going to make my kid's life?"
In a 2023 survey, the Consortium for School Networking, a tech-oriented nonprofit, found just 16% of districts had full-time network security staff, with nearly nearly half devoting 2% or less of their IT budgets to security.
Österreich Neuesten Nachrichten, Österreich Schlagzeilen
Similar News:Sie können auch ähnliche Nachrichten wie diese lesen, die wir aus anderen Nachrichtenquellen gesammelt haben.
Ransomware criminals are dumping kids' private files online after school hacksRansomware gangs have been stealing confidential documents from schools and dumping them online.
Weiterlesen »
Ransomware criminals dump personal information of students online after stealing files from MN schoolOver 300,000 personal files were stolen from a Minneapolis schools' database. The school refused to pay a $1 million ransom before all of the files were stolen.
Weiterlesen »
Ransomware criminals are dumping kids’ private files online after school hacksThe confidential documents stolen from schools and dumped online by ransomware gangs describe student sexual assaults, psychiatric hospitalizations, abusive parents, truancy — even suicide attempts…
Weiterlesen »
Ransomware criminals are dumping kids' private files online after school hacksCriminal hackers are stealing students’ private files and dumping them online when schools don’t pay ransoms. The files describe child sexual assaults, psychiatric hospitalizations, abusive parents — even suicide attempts.
Weiterlesen »
Ransomware criminals are dumping kids' private files online after school hacksThe confidential documents stolen from schools and dumped online by ransomware gangs are raw, intimate and graphic. They describe student sexual assaults, psychiatric hospitalizations, abusive parents, truancy — even suicide attempts.
Weiterlesen »
Ransomware criminals are dumping kids’ private files online after school hacksRansomware gangs have been stealing confidential documents from schools and dumping them online.
Weiterlesen »