Education technology giant Instructables has confirmed a data breach affecting students’ personal information. Hacking and extortion gang ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach.
The hackers claim they stole students’ names, their personal email addresses, and messages sent between teachers and students — the same type of data the instructor admitted to stealing.
Instructables is the latest corporate giant to be hacked by the ShinyHunters gang. Cybercriminals have targeted universities and cloud database companies in recent months, stealing large amounts of people’s personal information and threatening to post the data online unless the companies paid the hackers ransom.
A member of ShinyHunters shared a sample of the stolen data with TechCrunch, which included data from two schools in the United States, one in Massachusetts and one in Tennessee. In the case of Massachusetts, the data included messages that included names, email addresses and some phone numbers. For schools in Tennessee, the sample included students’ full names and email addresses.
The sample did not include passwords or other types of data that Instructor said was unaffected by the breach.
TechCrunch is not naming the schools because they are not victims. Based on information visible on their websites, both schools appear to use Canvas, the platform for instruction that allows customers to manage coursework, assignments, and communicate with students.
ShinyHunters also shared a list of around 8,800 schools reportedly affected by the breach. TechCrunch could not confirm whether all listed institutions were affected, nor whether they are Instruct customers. On its official site, Instructables says it has over 8,000 institution customers.
When contacted by TechCrunch, Instructable spokesperson Kate Holmes did not answer multiple questions about the incident, and instead referred to the company’s official page, where it is publishing updates on the breach.
On its data leak site, where ShinyHunters claims responsibility for the data breaches and attempts to pressure victims to pay ransom, the hackers claim the breach affected the data of nearly 9,000 schools around the world and 275 million people, including students, teachers and other staff. In an online chat, a ShinyHunters member told TechCrunch that the total number of unique emails included in the stolen data is 231 million.
Financially motivated hacking groups are known to exaggerate their claims to gain attention from the media as well as their victims.
As of Tuesday, Instructables said some of its products, such as Canvas, had been restored to customers after maintenance.
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