Students’ Data Exposed by Pearson Hack

In the same week that Capital One disclosed a data breach that affected more than 100 million individuals, London-based Pearson PLC announced a warning of its own. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, a breach at the educational software giant affected more than 13,000 school district and university accounts, meaning that millions of records might be involved.

The breach initially occurred in November 2018, but Pearson only learned about it in March 2019 when they were informed by the FBI, meaning the violation went undetected for about five months. The WSJ article noted that Pearson has been increasing its focus on digital services lately, and that data theft is often an unintended consequence of educational companies shifting to digital products. Details surrounding how and who performed the attack are still unknown. What we do know is that this delay in breach notification might cause serious ramifications with the EU’s General Data Protection Rule (GDPR), which requires organizations to notify affected parties within 72 hours of identification of a breach.

Information accessed contains names, dates of birth and email addresses. The company believes that student data was not misused and that Social Security numbers and other financial information were not accessed. While Pearson is offering the standard complimentary credit monitoring services to affected victims, we’re also recommending consumers take advantage of free “security freeze” services.

As a current college student, this breach is particularly concerning, considering its potential affect on my information. After all, this isn’t a failure on students’ part, but the failed responsibility of a third party used by many educational institutions. Furthermore, increased dependency on such third parties is causing organizations everywhere to struggle to gain assurance that their data is secure.

To identify serious issues like these sooner, more preventative measures need to be put in place. Therefore, regular security audits and penetration tests of all assets, including cloud infrastructure, are highly recommended. If all or part of your business relies on a third party, do you have the proper oversight to ensure that your and your clients’ data is safe? For help with oversight, risk mitigation, risk assessment and cybersecurity services, reach out to us at 412-261-3644 or [email protected].