Education Sector

100 more breaches you probably never knew about in 2009

As noted here and elsewhere, the number of breaches reported in the media and other sources  declined in 2009 relative to 2008, but newly obtained data suggests that once again, there was much that we did not know. During the period September 1 – December 31, 2009,   141 breach reports were received by...

NY’s Higher Education Services Corp had its own breach last year

In discussing the huge Educational Credit Management Corp data breach previously covered on this site, Rick Karlin of the Times Union mentions a second and unrelated breach, this one by New York’s Higher Education Services Corp: happened back in December when 1,433 e-mails from HESC ran into a “process error” by which...

Boy, 9, accused of hacking into Fairfax schools’ computer system

Tom Jackman reports: Are you smarter than a third-grader? Because the online education system used by the Fairfax County public schools apparently is not. Police say a 9-year-old McLean boy hacked into the Blackboard Learning System used by the county school system to change teachers’ and staff members’ passwords, change or delete course content,...

(follow-up) District Data Breach Leads to Prison Time

Dian Schaffhauser reports: A Washington State man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to 31 counts of criminal activity, most related to a school district data breach. Christopher Berge, now 21, was a student at Mountain View High School in Evergreen Public Schools when he “shoulder surfed”–physically observed–a password...

Gateway Community College also reported breach

So while I was looking for information on the Three Rivers Community College report, I stumbled across another incident handled by csIDentity.com. The page is no longer available except in Google’s cache: During a recent security review of the computers at Gateway Community College, it was discovered that certain personal information associated with a...

Three Rivers reports possible data breach

Jenna Cho reports: Three Rivers Community College may have suffered a security breach due to unauthorized access to its computer network, according to information on its Web site Tuesday. A notice on the college’s site says: Dear Sir or Madam, During a recent review of computers at Three Rivers Community College, a potential breach...

Student Hacks Into Valencia High System

Ah, it’s Spring, and young students’ thoughts turn to hacking…. Jeremiah McDaniel reports on yet another case, this one in California: A Valencia High School student faces criminal charges for hacking into the school’s network. The student hacked into the system and made changes to information according Paul Preisz, the school’s Principal. “The student...

(Follow-up) Officials: Ex-Student Broke Into District Data

As a follow-up to a breach originally covered here in November, KPTV now reports: A former student was behind a data security breach that compromised the personal information of more than 5,000 current and former Vancouver School District workers, officials said Thursday. Christopher Berge, who attended Evergreen Public Schools, pleaded guilty to 30 different...