Tech School Hack Affects Health, Personal Data of 209,000
August 12, 2024 – Published on HealthcareInfoSecurity
An Arizona-based technical school is notifying nearly 209,000 current and former students, parents, guardians and faculty that their personal, health and financial information was potentially compromised in a hacking incident detected earlier this year. The attack was carried out by ransomware-as-a-service group LockBit.
East Valley Institute of Technology, whose students include high schoolers as well as adults, told Maine’s attorney general in a report filed Friday that the records of 208,717 individuals – including 12 Maine residents – were potentially affected in a Jan. 9 cyberattack on the school.
EVIT is among a growing group of educational institutions that cybercriminals have struck in recent months.
Organizations in the education sector are attractive targets for cybercriminals for a variety of reasons but especially due to the sensitivity of data held by these institutions, said Grayson North, senior security consultant at GuidePoint Security.
Since the beginning of 2024, GuidePoint has observed 95 organizations in the education sector that cybercriminals have publicly claimed as ransomware victims, North said.
Of these victims, 36% were claimed by LockBit, which after a dominant streak as the most prolific ransomware gang was disrupted by international law enforcement and sanctioned by the U.S. government in May, he said.
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