A cyberattack on Illuminate Education, exposing the personal data of 1M+ students, highlights the dangers of stockpiling school children's sensitive information
At a moment when education technology firms are stockpiling sensitive information on millions of school children, safeguards for student data have broken down. Tweets: @funnymonkey , @imeluny , @alexanderrusso , @nytmetro , @leoniehaimson , @csoleil , @seangraf , @balbonipaolo , and @mindingprivacy Tweets: Bill Fitzgerald / @funnymonkey : Thread. Data breaches, bad security. It's all here. https://twitter.com/... Melanie Ensign / @imeluny : Pro Tip: “we have no evidence of misuse” is not the reassurance companies often think it is bc we've come to expect by default that there won't be adequate monitoring or logs. https://twitter.com/... Alexander / @alexanderrusso : “Although it [Illuminate] was not the largest hack on an ed tech company, these experts say they are troubled by the nature and scope of the data breach...” https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytmetro : Mayor Eric Adams said that Illuminate Education, a school software vendor that suffered a cyberattack earlier this year, had “failed to protect the privacy of approximately 800,000 New York City students.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Leonie Haimson / @leoniehaimson : Re illuminate breach; “There has really been an epic failure,” said NM AG whose office has sued tech companies for violating kids privacy. Congress has failed to enact data protections for students while regulators failed to hold ed tech firms accountable. https://www.nytimes.com/... S. Stoerger / @csoleil : “My concern is there will be bad actors who will exploit a public school setting, especially when they think that the technology protocols are not very robust...And I don't know why Congress isn't terrified yet.” https://www.nytimes.com/... #cybersecurity #privacy #edtech #education Sean Graf / @seangraf : As these student-tracking systems have spread, however, so have cyberattacks on school software vendors — including a recent hack that affected Chicago Public Schools. A Cyberattack Illuminates the Shaky State of Student Privacy https://www.nytimes.com/... Paolo Balboni / @balbonipaolo : A Cyberattack Illuminates the Shaky State of Student Privacy: “The exposure of such private information could have long-term consequences.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Jolynn Dellinger / @mindingprivacy : For a company whose services reach 17 million students to NOT have a chief information security officer is bonkers. Not a big leap to say FERPA - 1974- could use an update. But honestly need 4 chief privacy and security officers is not rocket science. https://www.nytimes.com/...