Pratt Institute is notifying 12,738 people of a data breach following a cyber attack in December 2023. The attack was claimed by ransomware group LockBit in January 2024.
In its notification, Pratt explains that the incident occurred between December 13, 2023 and December 16, 2023. During this time, an “unauthorized party had access to certain Pratt systems” and “may have acquired certain Pratt files from those systems.”
The type of data breached during the attack has been redacted in the notification but Comparitech has contacted Pratt for more information. We have also asked for more details into the incident, including whether it can confirm LockBit’s claim and whether a ransom was demanded. We will update the article if we receive a response.
In the meantime, we recommend anyone affected to sign up for the complimentary one-year membership of Equifax Complete Premier that Pratt is offering.
Who is LockBit?
LockBit is one of the most prolific ransomware gangs of recent years. Since 2018, we’ve tracked 424 attacks via this group, affecting over 26.2 billion records.
So far this year, we’ve confirmed LockBit as the group behind 54 attacks with 12 of these being on the education sector. This includes recent attacks on Pueblo County School District 70, Hesperia Unified School District, Brockington College, Ewing Marion Kauffman School, and the Township of Union Public Schools.
We tracked a further 377 unconfirmed ransomware attacks claimed by LockBit so far in 2024.
Experts say the group is based in Russia. Often, LockBit will operate a double-extortion model in which it demands one ransom to decrypt systems and a second ransom to delete any stolen data.
According to Darkfeed.io, LockBit has been undergoing some strategic changes following law enforcement raids and attacks on its infrastructure. Its website is now protected by CAPTCHAs to prevent service shutdown attacks, and all negotiations take place exclusively through LockBit’s platform.
Ransomware attacks on the US education sector
In 2023, we recorded 113 attacks on US schools and colleges. These attacks affected nearly 2.5 million records. Ransomware attacks on this sector have declined this year so far, with 25 noted to date. As well as the aforementioned attacks, other recent incidents have included those on the New York School of Interior Design, Concord Public Schools and the Concord-Carlisle Regional School District, Asbury Theological Seminary, and Newberg-Dundee School District.
We also tracked 42 unconfirmed attacks on US education institutions this year so far.
More about the Pratt Institute
The Pratt Institute is a private university that specializes in architecture, art, design, and liberal arts and sciences. Its main campus is located in Brooklyn, New York, and it’s home to just under 4,000 students.