Imagine a criminal gaining unrestricted access to your child’s most private information — medical records, Social Security numbers and even details about their daily bus ride to school. This alarming scenario is becoming a reality for a growing number of families as sophisticated cybercriminals increasingly target schools across the United States, holding their computer systems and private data hostage.
Data gathered by K12 Security Information Exchange, known as K12 SIX, a nonprofit focused on protecting schools from cybersecurity threats, and analyzed by CBS News, shows that there have been hundreds of ransomware attacks on districts since 2016.
Read more…
Source: CBS News
Related:
- Impostor uses AI to impersonate Rubio and contact foreign and US officials
July 8, 2025
The State Department is warning U.S. diplomats of attempts to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and possibly other officials using technology driven by artificial intelligence, according to two senior officials and a cable sent last week to all embassies and consulates. The warning came after the department discovered that an impostor posing as Rubio had ...
- U.S. Justice Department Announces Arrest of Prolific Chinese State-Sponsored Contract Hacker
July 8, 2025
China’s Ministry of State Security Directed the Theft of COVID-19 Research and the Exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities, Known Publicly as the Indiscriminate ‘HAFNIUM’ Intrusion Campaign The Justice Department announced today that Xu Zewei (徐泽伟), 33, of the People’s Republic of China was arrested on July 3 in Italy at the request of the ...
- Ingram Micro says ongoing outage caused by ransomware attack
July 7, 2025
Ingram Micro, a U.S. technology distributing giant and managed services provider, said on Monday a ransomware attack is the cause of an ongoing outage at the company. The hack began on Thursday, after which the company’s website and much of its network went down. Late on Saturday, the company said in a brief statement that it ...
- Mexican drug cartel hacked cameras and phones to spy on FBI and identify witnesses
July 3, 2025
The “El Chapo” Mexican drug cartel snooped on FBI personnel through hacked cameras, and listened in on their phone calls to identify and kill potential witnesses, the US Department of Justice has said. And seven years on, the Bureau’s defenses against this kind of surveillance are still inadequate. The findings came to light in a June ...
- FBI: Fraudsters Target US Stock Investors through Investment Clubs Accessed on Social Media and Messaging Applications
July 3, 2025
The FBI warns the public about criminals targeting US stock investors through social media platforms and messaging service applications (apps). The scheme, known as a “ramp-and-dump” stock manipulation, targets US investors through online engagement, often via social media advertisements or messages promoting an “investment club” of fellow investors, some of which may be bots or ...
- Iran-linked hackers threaten to release Trump aides’ emails
July 1, 2025
Iran-linked hackers have threatened to disclose more emails stolen from U.S. President Donald Trump’s circle, after distributing a prior batch to the media ahead of the 2024 U.S. election. In online chats with Reuters on Sunday and Monday, the hackers, who go by the pseudonym Robert, said they had roughly 100 gigabytes of emails from the ...