Pearson hackers access thousands of student accounts

Pearson has admitted a data breach that saw around 13,000 of its US school and university student accounts accessed by hackers.

The cyber-attack hit students with AIMSweb 1.0 accounts, a system that keeps track of pupils’ academic progress through assessment.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the hack actually took place last November and Pearson was notified by the FBI in March.

The company said in a statement that the breach was limited to first name, last name and, in some cases, date of birth or email address. Pearson added all affected customers had been notified.

It was also mainly limited to the US, although there were a small number of accounts belonging to students attending American-affiliated schools abroad.

Pearson said: “Protecting our customers’ information is of critical importance to us. We have strict data protections in place and have reviewed this incident, found and fixed the vulnerability.

“While we have no evidence that this information has been misused, we have notified the affected customers as a precaution. We apologize to those affected and are offering complimentary credit monitoring services as a precautionary measure.”