4,000 University of York students’ data has been accessed in data hack

Information about thousands of students has been downloaded in a data breach at the University of York.

A spokesperson for the university said the administrative records and "very private information" of 88 students were directly accessed in the "malicious" data breach.

The university confirmed no financial or other sensitive data was downloaded.

A further 4,400 students' basic data was also downloaded. However, the university said this data was much less detailed and contained no financial or sensitive information.

The university is directly contacting the 88 students whose data was accessed and have reported the "compromise" of data to The National Crime Agency.

In a statement the university said: "We are not aware of any students being subject to further targeting, such as attempted fraud, as a result of this data being accessed."

A few weeks ago a similar "sophisticated and malicious" cyber attack was carried out at Lancaster University.

The attack resulted in a breach of Lancaster Uni applicants' data, affecting up to 12,000 applicants who applied to Lancaster University in 2019-20.

The hacker gained access to a staff email and emailed thousand of prospective students fraudulent invoices – with up to half a dozen paying them.

Data that was breached included information about applicants namesm addresses, telephone number and email address.

Lancaster Uni confirmed they had alerted applicants to be aware of any suspicious approaches and contacted the small number of students who had their record and ID documents accessed with advice.

The National Crime Agency has since arrested a 25-year old man on suspicion of committing Computer Misuse Act and fraud offences following the cyber breach.

If you have any concerns about the data breach at York you should email [email protected].

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