Since 2005, US educational institutions have had 3,713 data breaches, affecting about 37.6 million records. According to Comparitech, 2023 saw a record 954 breaches, up from 139 in 2022 and 783 in 2021. Over 800 institutions were affected by MOVEit file transfer software vulnerabilities, causing this surge. The number of compromised records in 2023 rose to nearly 4.3 million from 2.6 million in 2021 and 2022. Third-party breaches compromised 1.7 million records, and 65 ransomware attacks compromised 1.9 million.

Two previously undocumented backdoors, "LunarWeb" and "LunarMail," targeted an unnamed European Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and its three diplomatic missions in the Middle East. ESET attributed the activity to the Russia-aligned cyber espionage group "Turla" with medium confidence, citing tactical overlaps with previous campaigns. Turla, an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) found to be affiliated with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), has been active since at least 1996. It has targeted government, embassies, military, education, research, and pharmaceutical industries.