Attack enabled the theft of data belonging to 62 million American children.
Massachusetts teen Matthew Lane has admitted guilt over his involvement in the massive attack against online education software provider PowerSchool in December.
The infiltration of PowerSchool's systems was done by Lane through stolen employee credentials, enabling the theft of data belonging to 62 million American children, according to NBC News. Details included their names, birthdates, addresses, medical details, and certain Social Security numbers, according to the plea deal, which noted his acceptance of jail time not exceeding nine years and four months.
Additional details pertaining to Lane's involvement in the nearly $2.85 million extortion were unclear, but the complaint noted the presence of a co-conspirator and other cyber-criminals who collaborated to demand ransom payment from another company.
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Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
