Thousands of educational institutions across the world, including Queensland state schools and universities, have been impacted by a major data breach.
Hackers have targeted Instructure, a third-party provider which delivers the Department of Education’s online learning platform, QLearn.
Early advice is this will impact more than 200 million people and more than 9,000 institutions worldwide.
Data accessed in the incident, includes the name, email address and school location for all users of the online learning program.
A statement from the Queensland Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek states students and staff working or studying at Education Queensland schools since 2020 have been affected.
“No evidence of passwords, dates of birth or financial information being accessed in the data breach,” the statement reads.
“School principals are in the process of contacting families and teachers to advise them of the breach,
“The Department of Education is providing priority support to families and teachers with known family and domestic violence, or those known to Child Safety.”
The department is working closely with the Queensland Government Cyber Security Unit and other State and Federal authorities to assess any ongoing impacts and ensure relevant reporting takes place.
Instructure is also well-known for its teaching and learning platform ‘Canvas’ used by universities, including Griffith University, which has a campus on the Gold Coast.
A statement from Griffith University states there is no immediate action from students or staff required.
