Hackers attack cloud computing providers and steal data from current or former students at a minimum of 10 universities within the UK, the US and Canada.
According to a report by the BBC, Human Rights Watch and therefore the children's psychological state organization Young Minds have also confirmed that they were affected.
The hack targeted Blackbowd, the world's largest provider of educational administration, fundraising and financial management software.
The US-based company's system was hacked in May.
The company has thus far been criticized for failing to disclose it to the general public and for paying unknown ransom to hackers.
According to the report, in some cases the info was limited to alumni who were asked to supply support to the institutions they graduated from, but in others hackers targeted data from staff, current students and other helpers.
The names of the affected universities that are confirmed by the BBC thus far are:
- New York University
- Oxford Brooks University
- University of Lauburo
- University of Leeds
- University of London
- University of Reading
- University College, Oxford
- Ambrose University, Alberta, Canada
- Human Rights Watch
- Young Minds
- Rhode Island School of Design, USA
- University of Exeter
In addition, all agencies are sending apologies to those whose data has been stolen.
In some cases, the stolen data included phone numbers, donation dates and events, but mastercard and other payment details haven't been revealed so far.
Blackbowd, headquartered in South Carolina, declined to supply an entire list of victims, saying "they want to respect the privacy of their customers."
In May 2020, we learned of an attack for ransom, which was stopped and therefore the attacker removed our data before the attacker was stopped,
he said during a statement on the company's website.
The statement said Blackbow had complied with the ransom demand, which wasn't illegal, but contradicted the recommendations of several enforcement agencies, including the FBI, NCA and Europol.
BlackBoad users who weren't suffering from the attack are:
- University College London
- Queen's University Bell Fast
- University of the West of Scotland
- Islamic Relief
- Preventive carcinoma
Rice Morgan, a cybersecurity expert at Oxford Brooks University and a former student, said:
My main concern is how BlackBoard will convince universities what data hackers have obtained.
I cannot be bothered thereupon . How can they know what the attackers will do with this information?
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