U.S. Schools and Colleges Witness a Rise in Data Breaches

Data breaches and cyberattacks continue to grow and now targeting the education sector. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, these incidents are getting intensified. 

A report from Comparitech revealed that the schools and colleges of the US have been under the threat of 1,327 data breaches which resulted in a loss of over 24 million records in the past 15 years. It also reveals that hacking is primarily has done and cause of data breaches. 

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The latest report by Verizon revealed that the education sector has witnessed phishing attacked in about 28% of data breaches in the first four months of this year. It also says that 23% of data breaches take place by hacking the stolen credentials.   

K-12 schools witnessed data breaches and accounted for the leak of 1 million records. Other than hacking and phishing, institution disclosures, insider threats, and portable devices theft are also responsible for data breaches. 

Among all institutions, public institutions are affected more by breaches as compared to private ones.in the US, California is the one most affected due to the data breaches. It witnesses both K-12 schools and colleges and 157 out of 1,328 data breaches.

The FBI reported that the ransomware attacks have increased since September 2019 and their target are K-12 schools. Hackers exploit the remote desktop protocol vulnerabilities, hit approximately 284 schools between January 1 and April 8.