These outlets provide tools to protect you from phishing and other forms of hacking, combined with scanning services that look for your Social Security number or email address in places online where it doesn’t belong.Ĭarvalho said the district will provide a credit-monitoring service for free to anyone whose personal information is released by the hackers.Ĭalifornia LAUSD parents can call a hotline with questions about data hackers released in cyberattack Or sign up for a credit- and identity-monitoring service, which typically carries a monthly fee. Cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs also suggests freezing the credit files maintained by a handful of smaller, specialized agencies, such as ChexSystems and FactorTrust. But you have to contact each of the three major credit reporting companies individually, which you can do online. It’s free to place a freeze and to lift it for your own needs. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau outlines several ways to check your score, either for free or for a fee.įor even more protection, put a freeze on your credit files, which will prevent anyone from opening a new account. For instance, someone opening a credit card account in your name will usually lower your credit score. If so, change your password immediately.Ĭheck your credit score regularly, which is a good way to detect fraud after it happens. But it wouldn’t hurt to make yourself less vulnerable now.Ĭheck to see if your email credentials have been stolen in a data breach by visiting. Take proactive steps to guard against identity theftĪgain, it’s not clear at this point who, exactly, has been affected. Technology and the Internet Did someone ‘accidentally’ send you money on Venmo? You might be getting scammedĭid someone send you money ‘by accident’ on Venmo, Zelle or Cashapp? Don’t rush to send it back. The data can also help them make more effective phishing attacks against other networks by helping them more credibly impersonate trusted connections, said Brett Callow, a threat analyst for the security firm Emsisoft. The more personal data they can collect, the more ability they’ll have to impersonate you when dealing with your bank, your service providers and your contacts. Identity thieves are interested in more than your Social Security number, though. That included some W-9 tax forms, documents that are typically filed by contractors and contain either a Social Security or taxpayer ID number. Instead, he said, a limited number of workers employed by maintenance or construction contractors had personal information disclosed. Nor was there evidence of current employees’ confidential information, including Social Security numbers and payroll information, being disclosed, Carvalho said. Instead, he said, it’s largely student names, attendance data, some academic information and some addresses that may be linked to the students who live there. But Carvalho said there was no evidence at this point that Social Security numbers or sensitive health information were divulged. The archived records did have Social Security numbers for some students, Carvalho said, along with names and addresses. So for many kids, that should be one fewer thing to worry about. Under state law, school districts have been barred from collecting students’ Social Security numbers since 2017, except where required by law (for example, when a student is a paid employee). Hackers posted private data after the school district refused to pay ransom.įigure out what personal data you’ve disclosed to LAUSD That’s a tiny fraction of the 16 million gigabytes of data district officials say their system stores.Ĭalifornia No widespread, systemic release of confidential data in LAUSD cyberattack, Carvalho says The superintendent said hackers extracted 500 gigabytes of data from the district, or enough to fill more than 100 standard DVDs. By shutting down the rest of the network soon after the intrusion was detected, he said, the district was able to limit the hackers’ reach. The other main system affected is the one that holds data about students and their classes, especially a system that archived data from 2013 to 2016, Carvalho said. Carvalho also said the district does not yet, and may never, know how the hackers - a group that calls itself Vice Society and has claimed credit - slipped into and disabled parts of the LAUSD network.Īccording to the district, the attack caused the most damage to the district’s Facilities Services Division, which oversees maintenance and construction. That leaves people who’ve interacted with the district guessing whether they were victimized and, if they were, what sorts of data were released. The investigation is ongoing, and about a third of the material released has yet to be examined by LAUSD.
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