A data breach, observed at Get Schooled (getschooled.com), a charity founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with Viacom, resulted in the exposure of personal information for approximately 900,000 students.
The leak was the result of a databasebeing left unprotected on the internet, allowing anyone with an internet to access it.
The breach affects 930,000 people, including children aged 10 to 16, some young adults and some students.
The information contains extensive personal information of children, adolescents and young adults, such as: full addresses, schools, full student identities including phone numbers and messages, graduation details, ages, genders and more.
The breach was disclosed by TurgenSec (turgensec.com) to Get Schooled on November 18, 2020, and Get Schooled finally addressed the breach on December 21, more than a month later.
Get Schooled Foundation is a national nonprofit organization that helps young people progress through high school, college, and alternative pathways and early careers through a unique combination of engaging digital content, gamification, and personalized support.
According to the Financial Times, which first reported the incident: The Get Schooled foundation disputed the size of the breach, saying it believed about 250,000 accounts were left exposed. It said that under a third of those accounts, about 75,000, were linked to email addresses that remain active. It estimated that about 20,000 phone numbers and 12,000 email addresses could have been compromised, but said that no dates of birth or financial details were included in the database.
