Hackers steal sensitive data from Department for Education and police
Summary
Hackers stole over 740,000 pieces of data from the UK's Department for Education (DfE) and a police legal database. The stolen information includes contact details of officials, school and university staff, police officers, and members of the public. The hacking group called ExfilSquad is demanding payment to stop leaking the data.Key Facts
- More than 600,000 data lines were taken from the DfE’s help-desk portal, including names, emails, phone numbers, and job titles.
- A smaller amount of data was stolen from the DfE’s Turing portal, which manages a study abroad scheme.
- The police national legal database (PNLD) was also hacked, exposing about 135,000 pieces of data mainly about police officers and criminal justice workers.
- Some public members’ names and addresses were taken from the Ask the Police service, but no confidential victim or offender info was exposed.
- The hackers, calling themselves ExfilSquad, posted samples of the stolen data online to pressure the victims to pay a ransom.
- The DfE and PNLD deny that ransomware was used to lock their systems.
- The stolen PNLD data includes passwords, which raises concerns about password reuse on more sensitive systems.
- The UK government is working with cybersecurity agencies to investigate and respond to the attack.
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