This week, reports of a major data breach involving the data of millions of U.S. students have increased online. The hacker demands payment in Bitcoin (BTC) to prevent the leak of confidential information. The security breach appears to be part of a larger attack on a cloud database.
Student data at risk of leakage
On Tuesday, two U.S. educational institutions received warnings about a breach of confidential information. A hacker known as Sp1d3r has announced that the data of more than 4 million American students is at risk of being publicly leaked.
The hacker claims to have stolen information from Los Alamos Public Schools and Edgenuity, an online education platform. Apparently the information was taken from the Snowflake Edgenuity and LASchools.net accounts.
Sp1d3r’s ransom post warning the victims. Source: Murky Web Informer on X
It is worth noting that despite the hacker’s post stating that the information came from Los Angeles schools, the website cited comes from Los Alamos Public Schools, a school district in the Los Alamos area of Novel Mexico.
How reported Cloud data analytics company Bloomberg has fallen victim to a series of “targeted” cyberattacks on Snowflake users without two-factor authentication (2AF). The report shows that hackers are demanding payments for stolen sensitive data ranging from $300,000 to $5 million.
Sp1d3r warned victims, asking for 30 Bitcoins, or approximately $2 million, or the students’ information would be made public. The data includes data from millions of minors, preschoolers, 12th graders and their parents.
The list shows that students’ names, addresses, financial records, discipline, grades, grade point averages and scores were stolen. In addition, the hacker has the victims’ medical data and parents’ Internet login details.
Victims have until June 25 to make payments in Bitcoin. Similarly, the hacker recently issued a warning to users of Santander Group Bank, demanding a payment of 30 Bitcoins for the data of over 30 million customers in Spain, Chile and Uruguay.
$27 million in bitcoin earned by leader of hacker group
The attack on the Snowflake database was attributed to the “UNC5537” hacking group run by Google’s Madiant security division. The investigation suggests there is a possibility that the Turkish-US-based hacking group collaborated on its attacks with another group called “Scattered Spider”.
This cybercrime group apparently consists of youthful adults between the ages of 19 and 22 from the United States and the United Kingdom and focuses on data theft and extortion. The hacker group recently became celebrated after the arrest of an alleged member of the ring in Spain.
On the weekend Murcia Today reported that a 22-year-old Briton was arrested in Palma de Mallorca. The man was arrested on suspicion of being the leader of Scattered Spider.
According to the report, Spanish authorities worked with the FBI to capture the man as he prepared to board a plane to Italy. The suspect entered Spain at the end of May through Barcelona airport.
Police said the detained man earned approximately 400 Bitcoins worth $27 million by stealing confidential information from companies and selling it.
Bitcoin is trading at $65,087 in the three-day chart. Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView
Featured image from Unsplash.com, chart from TradingView.com
