Over 500K Chicago student, staff data compromised in ransomware attack

More than 500,000 students and staff members at Chicago Public Schools had their data exposed following a ransomware attack against its vendor Battelle for Kids in December, according to the Associated Press. Despite the breach happening before 2021 ended, Battelle for Kids only informed CPS regarding the incident, which involved unauthorized access to a server with four years' worth of records belonging to 495,448 students and 56,138 employees. Students from the 2015-16 through 2018-19 school years had their names, birthdates, gender, schools, state student identification numbers, CPS identification numbers, course-specific exam scores, and class schedules compromised, while employees had their names, schools, employee identification numbers, emails and usernames, and school and course information accessed. However, no other records have been stored in the compromised server, said CPS. "There were no Social Security numbers, no financial information, no health data, no current course or schedule information, no home addresses and no course grades, standardized test scores, or teacher evaluation scores exposed in this incident," CPS said.