The personal details of hundreds of thousands of school leaders, university staff and government officials have reportedly been exposed after hackers breached a UK Department for Education (DfE) system.
The cyberattack is said to have compromised around 607,000 records, including names, job titles, email addresses and phone numbers of people who had interacted with the department.
According to The Times, the attackers targeted the DfE’s help desk, which handles requests from schools and local authorities, as well as the Turing Scheme portal, used by educational institutions to manage UK students studying abroad.
The newspaper reported that a cybercriminal group known as ExfilSquad claimed responsibility for the breach in posts on the dark web.