"Illuminate Data Breach Impacts More School Districts"

A cyberattack that compromised the personal data of hundreds of thousands of students in New York has also affected additional students based in Colorado.  The cyberattack occurred at California-based software company and New York City vendor Illuminate Education, which makes apps to track student grades and attendance.  Adversaries hacked into the company's network, gaining access to databases containing student data, some of which they exfiltrated.   In March, New York City's Department of Education announced that the attack had exposed the names, birthdates, ethnicities, home languages, and student ID numbers of 820,000 current and former New York City public school students.  According to recent reports, the intrusion at Illuminate has also impacted school districts in Colorado, including Douglas County, Mesa County Valley School District 51, District 12, and District 70.  During the investigation, the company determined on March 24 that unauthorized access to "certain databases containing potentially protected student information" had taken place between December 28, 2021 and January 8, 2022.  District 70 and District 12 parents were told that while the breach impacted no child's Social Security number, other data, including name, birth date, school of enrollment, student ID, and gender, had been compromised.  Both District 12 and 70 have withdrawn all their students' data from Illuminate Education and have stated that they will not engage the company's services in the future.  Mesa County Valley School District 51, which used Illuminate Education's assessment, progress monitoring and screening tool, Educlimber, noted that the databases accessed in the breach may have contained students' academic and behavior information and accommodation information. 

Infosecurity reports: "Illuminate Data Breach Impacts More School Districts"