14 schools across the UK have fallen victim to a major cyber-attack, resulting in the leaking of confidential student documents.

Information leaked by hackers online included children’s passport scans, which had been used for school trips, and staff contracts.

The data was originally stolen in 2022, with hacking group Vice Society thought to be involved, but has now been leaked online after schools failed to pay the ransom demands set out.

Documents contained data such as children’s SEN information, contract details, including the headmaster’s salary, and bursary fund receipts.

According to reporting by the BBC, the hacking group is the driving force behind a series of high-profile cyber-attacks on UK and US schools over the last few months.

Wired found that the Vice Society recently stole around 500 gigabytes of data from the Los Angeles Unified School District. The FBI has reportedly already released an alert on the group’s activities.

Achi Lewis, Area VP EMEA for Absolute Software, commented: “The education sector is a lucrative target for malicious cyber-criminals due to the large volume of sensitive data stored on school and university systems. As a result, ransomware attacks are a case of when, not if, which demands educational institutions to ensure they are prepared to both prevent and respond to these attacks, else they risk having documents stolen and leaked.

“Preventing a breach of IT systems requires strong network resilience, build on a platform of strong user verification to stop malicious actors breaching a network. Resilient Zero Trust, for example, works to verify users on a case-by-case basis, scanning for unusual activity in network and application access and alerting centralised IT teams to suspicious behaviour. These teams can then freeze, or shut down, potentially compromised devices to prevent threat actors from moving laterally across a network to cause further damage.

“Recovery from a ransomware attack is a complex task so it is also important for organisations to prepare to react to these attacks when they happen. The investigation, remediation, and recovery can take years after the initial attack, which in itself can last several months, so schools and universities must ensure they have response protocols in place.”

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The schools attacked included: Carmel College, St Helens; Durham Johnston Comprehensive School; Frances King School of English, London/Dublin; Gateway College, Hamilton, Leicester; Holy Family RC + CE College, Heywood; Lampton School, Hounslow, London; Mossbourne Federation, London; Pilton Community College, Barnstaple; Samuel Ryder Academy, St Albans; School of Oriental and African Studies, London; St Paul’s Catholic College, Sunbury-on-Thames; Test Valley School, Stockbridge; The De Montford School, Evesham.

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