Education software maker Pearson says data breach affected thousands of accounts in the U.S.

guest · Aug 1, 2019

Education software maker Pearson says data breach affected thousands of accounts in the U.S.
July 31, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/31/e...ch-affected-thousands-of-accounts-in-the-u-s/

Pearson, the London-based educational software maker, said today that thousands of school and university accounts, mostly in the United States, were affected by a data breach. The company added that it has notified affected users already and that the vulnerability has been fixed.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the data breach happened in November 2018 and Pearson was notified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March. The perpetrator is still unknown.

According to Pearson, unauthorized access was gained to 13,000 school and university accounts on AIMSweb, the company’s student monitoring and assessment platform. The data exposed included first and last names and, in some cases, date of birth and email addresses. Each account could potentially include information about thousands of students.
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guest · Aug 1, 2019

Dist. 26 Discovers Data Breach
August 1, 2019
https://www.journal-topics.com/articles/dist-26-discovers-data-breach/

River Trails School Dist. 26 officials said they became aware Wednesday (July 31) of a data breach that occurred last November affecting student information dating back to 1997.

According to Dist. 26 Supt. Nancy Wagner, the district received a letter from Pearson, a British-owned education publishing and assessment service for schools and corporations, that the company’s data was breached in November 2018. That included some of the district’s student information from AimsWeb, an assessment tool Dist. 26 uses.
The student data affected includes first and last names, and in some instances, dates of birth and email addresses.

According to Wagner, the district has contacted all families of impacted students for whom they have contact information.
Wagner said Pearson takes its obligation to safeguard personal information seriously.
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guest · Aug 2, 2019

School division announces third-party data breach
July 30, 2019
https://www.nvdaily.com/nvdaily/sch...cle_f392eb6e-048a-5400-81c6-0a196c849124.html

Shenandoah County Public School administrators recently announced a vendor they once used had a data breach that compromised some student and administrator data.

The school division used software called AIMSweb 1.0, a product of Pearson Assessments, in its elementary and middle schools for about five years until the 2016-2017 school year, said Dave Hinegardner, director of administrative services and strategic planning.
Pearson, after conducting a review, notified Shenandoah County Public Schools on July 23 of the breach. It appears that the student data that was compromised is directory type information that would include the student's name and in some cases date of birth and email address.

He stressed the data compromised did not contain any grades, Social Security information or credit card information as AIMSweb does not contain this information.
Account administrators also had data compromised that may include name, job title, work email and work address.
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guest · Aug 2, 2019

Washoe County School District suffers data breach impacting 114,000 students
July 31, 2019
https://www.washoeschools.net/site/...87d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=33721&PageID=1

A contractor used by the Washoe County School District (WCSD) has notified WCSD that it has experienced a data security incident. An older version of Pearson Clinical Assessment’s program—AIMSweb—is involved in the incident.

It’s important to note that only student names and some birthdates were exposed. In addition, a small number of staff names and email addresses were exposed, but a majority of the email addresses are no longer in use.

This incident impacts 114,000 students enrolled at WCSD between 2001 and 2016, and a much smaller number of staff members employed during the same period.
“The type of information involved in this incident was extremely limited,” said Robert Sidford, Chief Information and Innovation Officer for WCSD. “However, it represents a deviation from the standards that WCSD expects from our own data systems and those maintained by the contractors we do business with. [...]"
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guest · Aug 2, 2019

CCSD says data breach has exposed student, staff information
August 1, 2019
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2019/aug/01/ccsd-says-data-breach-has-exposed-student-staff-in/

Names and “in some instances” dates of birth of more than 550,000 former and current Clark County School District students were compromised in a data security incident.

The snafu occurred with a clinical assessment program — also known as AIMSweb — which was contracted by CCSD through the Pearson vendor, said the school district in a news release Thursday night.
AIMSweb1.0 is no longer in use, but the district still works with the vendor, the release said. Pearson’s other services weren’t affected by the security incident.

Aside from the roughly 559,487 students affected — who were enrolled in the district from 2008 to 2019 — a “much smaller” number of district employees were also at risk of being impacted, the release said.
Those employees’ first and last names, as well as their work locations, were exposed, the release said. “Any other identifying information was not revealed and was not compromised.”
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guest · Aug 3, 2019

More than 24,000 Greenville County schools students, alumni impacted by data breach
August 3, 2019
https://eu.greenvilleonline.com/sto...dents-alumni-impacted-data-breach/1898847001/

The names and birth dates of more than 24,000 current and former students of the Greenville County school district were exposed by a data breach, according to a statement from the district.
Students born between 2004 and 2011 who attended kindergarten in the district between 2012 and 2017 were affected.

"This is considered a low-level threat," school district spokeswoman Beth Brotherton said in an email. "In fact, names and birth dates are considered 'directory information' — without Social Security numbers, not much can be done. It’s why we don’t require (Social Security numbers) for school registration. "
The exposure came from a breach at AimsWeb, a subsidiary of the United Kingdom-based education software company named Pearson.
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guest · Aug 3, 2019

Hackers gain access to D-428 students' names, birthdates through third-party platform breach
August 3, 2019
https://www.daily-chronicle.com/201...-through-third-party-platform-breach/aqrthh3/

The first and last names and birthdates of DeKalb School District 428 students were accessed by a hacker after a data breach on a web platform operated by Pearson Clinical Assessment, a performance assessment tool used by educators around the globe, district Superintendent Jaime Craven said Friday.

Craven said the district had used the web platform from 2006 to 2018 to assess kindergarten through fifth grade performance levels in math and English language arts. Craven sent an email about the breach to district parents about noon Friday.
“Any time there’s a data breach from a third-party provider, that’s a concern,” Craven said Friday.
The district stopped using the platform for the 2018-19 school year. No data breached has any relation to the Chromebooks that district students use, Craven said.
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guest · Aug 9, 2019

Data breach exposed personal information of over 50,000 Naperville students
Pearson Data Incident

District 204 was recently notified by Pearson Clinical Assessment that the company experienced a data security incident related to their AIMSweb 1.0 product by an unauthorized third party. District 204 used AIMSweb 1.0 to track student academic progress and is one of 13,000 Pearson clients impacted by this incident.

According to Pearson, the data impacted was from the school years 2001-2016 and involved approximately 49,000 District 204 students enrolled during that time. The data also included approximately 2,300 staff members’ first and last names and school email addresses.
Although Pearson has provided no evidence that any data was misused, out of abundance of caution, the district wants to make you are aware of this incident.
[/qutoe]
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guest · Aug 14, 2019

18,000 Valley View students among those affected in data breach
August 14, 2019
https://www.theherald-news.com/2019...-among-those-affected-in-data-breach/a2dvtev/

Some current and former Valley View School District 365U students were among thousands across the country affected by a recent data breach.
Research company Pearson Clinical Assessment recently told the district that a product the school system had been using to track students' academic performance was hacked, according to a news release from Valley View. The product, AIMSweb 1.0, was used to monitor the progress of students in kindergarten through eighth grade until 2016.

Pearson believes the first name, last name, and, in some cases, date of birth of approximately 18,000 Valley View students were exposed, the release said. No test scores, performance data or any other identifying student information was part of the incident.
The exposed data also included the names and district-issued email addresses of 1,700 staff members. The staff member information is directory information already available on Valley View's website.
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guest · Aug 20, 2019

Mandan students' personal information exposed in data breach
August 19, 2019
https://www.grandforksherald.com/ne...s-personal-information-exposed-in-data-breach

The personal information of about 2,500 current and former Mandan Public Schools students was exposed by a recent nationwide data breach.

About 13,000 schools and universities around the country were impacted by the data breach involving Pearson Clinical Assessment's software called AIMSweb 1.0. Districts use the software for a variety of purposes, including to monitor student academic progress.
The first names, last names and birth dates for 2,527 current and former Mandan students were included in the breach, according to Jeff Rerick, technology director for Mandan Public Schools. Ninety-six students had only their first and last names revealed.

In addition, the first names, last names and emails of 238 Mandan Public Schools employees were exposed, according to Rerick.
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guest · Aug 21, 2019

Rome school district falls victim to nationwide data breach
August 20, 2019
https://www.wktv.com/content/news/R...im-to-nationwide-data-breach---556837811.html

The Rome City School District was a victim of a nationwide data breach involving an online educational platform.
Superintendent, Peter Blake, sent a letter to parents explaining this breach impacts students from the 2013-14 school year.

Blake says data was accessed by users who breached databases of a third-party vendor, Pearson Education, Inc., with whom the Rome City School District contracts with. He accessed in this breach were student's names, birthdays, and school information.
According to Blake, Pearson provided the district with a student assessment tool, AIMSweb, which required storage of student data. AIMSweb was hacked by unauthorized users. Blake says the district no longer uses AIMSweb product that experienced the data breach, AIMSweb 1.0.

Blake says numerous school districts have been impacted by this breach.
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guest · Aug 21, 2019

School of the Osage officials warn of data breach
August 21, 2019
https://www.abc17news.com/news/school-of-the-osage-officials-warn-of-data-breach/1111930636

A private company's data breach might have led to the release of some School of the Osage student information, administrators warned parents and patrons on the district website this week.

Pearson AIMSweb, a contractor used by schools "to provide support and educational services to individual students," told school leaders that some data stored on its servers might have been disclosed, including student names and birth dates, according to a post on the School of the Osage website. In its message the district said Pearson assured School of the Osage officials that no student grade or assessment information was affected.

"To date, we do not have any evidence that this information has been misused but we felt it important to make you aware of the situation," the district wrote in the message posted Monday.
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guest · Aug 24, 2019

Supt. informs Wilmington parents of data breach
August 24, 2019
http://homenewshere.com/wilmington_town_crier/news/article_933542b0-c516-11e9-92ea-1b82f108d162.html

Last Thursday, Wilmington Superintendent of Schools Dr. Glenn Brand sent a letter to parents of students affected in a data breach of an academic testing system that contained student information. According to the letter, the system breached is called the AIMS Web 1.0 system and it’s run by a software maker called Pearson.

A Pearson customer notification from Director of Media Relations Scott Overland on July 31 explains, “the exposed data was isolated to first name, last name, and in some instances may include date of birth and/or email address.”
While they estimate approximately 13,000 school and university accounts were affected by the data breach, Pearson could not provide a number of students affected.
Overland clarified, “the FBI has informed us none of the data has been misused and Pearson was not the primary or intended target of this data breach.”
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guest · Aug 26, 2019

Gordon County Schools notified about Pearson data breach
August 26, 2019
http://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/gordon-county-schools-notified-about-pearson-data-breach

Gordon County school officials are investigating a data breach that impacted elementary school children and staff.

A data security company called Pearson Clinical Assessment alerted the district that an unauthorized third party had gained access to information including names, dates of birth and email addresses.
School officials say this has not affected student grades.
The breach impacts K through 5th-grade students between 2002 and 2018.
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guest · Aug 27, 2019

F-M schools hit by nationwide computer data breach that targeted student information
August 27, 2019
https://www.syracuse.com/schools/20...reach-that-targeted-students-information.html

The Fayetteville-Manlius school district has announced it is one of thousands of districts hit by a nationwide computer data breach that targeted students’ personal information.
It is the second Central New York school district to go public with the information. The Rome school district told parents Aug. 15.

On Monday, Syracuse.com | The Post Standard reported that the Rome school district had sent a letter to parents stating it was among those affected by the breach and that other districts may have been impacted.
F-M officials posted a statement on its web site later Monday saying it too was hit.
F-M said it is working with Pearson representatives to identify which students are affected.
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Minimalist · Aug 28, 2019

What the education industry must do to protect itself from cyber attacks

Data breaches show no signs of slowing down and companies across many industry verticals fall victim to what now seems to be a regular occurrence.
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https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2019/08/28/education-industry-cyber-attacks/

guest · Aug 31, 2019

More Area Schools Impacted By Data Breach
August 30, 2019
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/c.../30/more-area-schools-impacted-by-data-breach

More schools districts around Central New York are finding out that they're part of a nationwide data breach.

Liverpool, Baldwinsville and North Syracuse are the latest to notify parents that the security breach at Pearson impacted students there.
The third party company provides assessment software, which was compromised last fall.
Students' names, dates of birth and email addresses could have been accessed. But officials say no grades or assessment information was affected.
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guest · Sep 1, 2019

Homer District Joins More Than 13K Schools Hacked In Nationwide Data Breach
August 30, 2019
https://www.wxhc.com/?p=57911

Homer Superintendent Thomas Turck confirmed yesterday (August 29) the district made a list of more than 13,000 schools and universities across the country targeted in a November 2018 data breach that affected software provided by Pearson Education.

The company notified the CNY Regional Information Center about the breach, which then sent the alert to Homer and other affected districts in the area on Wednesday (August 28).
Officials say the information compromised includes student names, addresses, and dates of birth.
Homer schools stopped using the software in 2017, so the students who were potentially affected would’ve attended school in the years prior.
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guest · Sep 1, 2019

Cayuga County-area schools hit in nationwide data breach
August 31, 2019
https://auburnpub.com/news/local/ca...cle_9da8d5c7-0fff-5c42-8ed7-0c061e5098fc.html

Some Cayuga County-area schools reported being among the thousands of institutions whose student and staff data was exposed by a breach in an education assessment platform.

According to a news release from the Central New York Regional Information Center included on a page from the Moravia Central School District's website addressing their student and staff data getting breached, the information center "contacted Pearson and the affected school districts in the region" to determine the extent of the breach once it learned of the incident.
Moravia said their compromised information was last names, student ID numbers and email addresses, adding that the district will contact each individual person affected.

“It’s unfortunate that one of our vendors was the victim of such a breach, and we will fulfill our responsibilities by contacting our families and staff members," district Superintendent Shaun O'Connor said in the news release.
Weedsport said Pearson assured the school district that it has "taken the necessary steps to mitigate the incident and is enhancing protections to guard against similar events."
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guest · Sep 1, 2019

Roaring Fork Schools data breach response seen as trial run should bigger incident occur
September 12, 2019
https://www.postindependent.com/new...en-as-trial-run-should-bigger-incident-occur/

A recent breach involving student and staff information kept by a contract vendor for the Roaring Fork School District doesn’t appear to have seriously compromised any of those involved.

“It’s unfortunate, but it’s also a reality in this day and age,” Gatlin told the school board when it met last week. “It’s probably just the first of more things to come.”
The district was advised of the incident in July, after database contract provider Pearson turned up an unauthorized access into an older database platform that had occurred back in March.

“We were fortunate in this instance that the number of students impacted was relatively low,” he said.
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guest · Sep 5, 2019

Parent Files Class-Action Suit After Data Breach Exposes Nearly 1 Million Schoolchildren’s Personal Information
September 5, 2019
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/09/05/pearson-school-data-breach-lawsuit/

A mother filed a federal class-action lawsuit on her daughter’s behalf Thursday, after nearly a million students nationwide had their personal information exposed in a data breach by a company used to track student academic progress.

The woman, identified as Kylie S., was seeking class-action status in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago against Pearson Clinical Assessment. Kylie S. sued on behalf of her daughter, K.S., and on behalf of “all other similarly situated individuals.”
The lawsuit said in November 2018, the data breach affected nearly 1 million students enrolled in about 13,000 schools in at least 13 states. Among the data stolen were first and last names, dates of birth, email addresses, and unique student identification numbers.

The suit said Pearson Clinical Assessment failed to have systems in place to protect the breach, and only took action after the FBI got involved and informed the company in March of this year.

“Even then, Pearson concealed its knowledge of the breach from students and their guardians until July 2019 when Pearson Clinical finally notified impacted schools and released a public statement,” the lawsuit said. “In disclosing the Data Breach, Defendants concealed the true extent of the breach to minimize the impact on their reputations.”
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Complaint: Pearson Clincal Assessment Class-Action Lawsuit

guest · Sep 9, 2019

Student info stolen as hacker hits Bethlehem schools
September 9, 2019
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Data-breach-in-Bethlehem-schools-impacts-2-68-14425217.php

Hackers accessed the names, birth dates and email addresses of 2,168 students in the Bethlehem Central School District as part of a multi-state digital security breach, according to a letter sent by the district superintendent to student households.

Superintendent of Schools Jody Monroe quietly informed parents in an Aug. 26-dated letter that no evidence indicated any of their children's information was misused. She said school officials learned of the breach a week earlier from Pearson Education Inc., a British educational software service.
The district posted the letter on its website Monday afternoon after it was reported on timesunion.com

Hackers accessed information that included first and last names, dates of birth and email addresses if the student had one at the time. The breach took place in November – Pearson discovered it in March. It began informing parents in July, the letter said.
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guest · Sep 12, 2019

Salamanca schools among 13,000 districts affected by data breach
September 11, 2019
http://www.salamancapress.com/news/...cle_b80b8e46-d515-11e9-aa43-cbf8b7b9317a.html

The Salamanca City Central School District was one of the 13,000 schools and universities recently hacked with a data breach to Pearson Education, district officials reported last week.

At the Board of Education meeting Sept. 3, Rob Miller, the district’s director of information technology and information systems, updated the board on what happened and the actions taken in the aftermath of the breach.
“The information is what we called directory information, so that’s identifiable information,” he said. “They haven’t found it anywhere and haven’t found it being used for anything.”
Miller said no Social Security numbers, birthdays, home addresses, emails or student IDS were acquired during the breach.

“We were notified by BOCES and Pearson of any unauthorized releases,” he explained. “Then we were required by law to notify parents, staff members and students who could have been affected.”
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guest · Sep 12, 2019

District 50 students' names, birth dates compromised in data breach
September 11, 2019
http://www.indexjournal.com/news/br...cle_0f5cd9b2-2551-519d-bac6-af57ae8647b5.html

The names and dates of birth of an undisclosed number of students in Greenwood County School District 50 have been compromised, according to a press release the district sent out Wednesday morning.

The breach was caused by a security issue with an assessment tool, AIMSweb, made by London-based education software developer Pearson.
Only last and first names were compromised. Middle names, schools, addresses and Social Security numbers were not.

“While this incident is considered low risk, the district encourages parents to utilize the complimentary credit monitoring provided by Pearson for affected students through Experian.”
“After Pearson notified District 50 about the issue, the district and Pearson worked together to understand the details of our district’s data. The district also contacted Pearson about its plans to destroy the data. Pearson has informed District 50 that the data will be deleted upon the conclusion of the investigation.”
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guest · Sep 13, 2019

Groton schools suffer data breach
September 12, 2019
https://www.ithaca.com/news/groton/...cle_146b87c8-d4b6-11e9-9909-1bb39782fa74.html

The records of 846 students were exposed during the security breach, revealing the following information of each of the students: first names, last names, date of births, email addresses and student ID numbers. Some districts had all of the information above exposed, while others may have had one or two pieces of the information exposed.

According to the school district, the security breach occurred back in November 2018 when there was an unauthorized access of Personally Identifiable Information from Pearson Education’s AIMSweb 1.0 System [...] The Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered the security breach and notified Pearson Education of the breach in March 2019.
Superintendent Margo Martin said fortunately none of the email addresses that were exposed were activated, so they were unusable.
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