Apparently socials were part of the LAUSD hack, this can’t be good … LAUSD UPDATE

In this blog post about LAUSD’s hack, we learned that two of the three articles written by the news agencies here in Southern California indicated that no major data was in the batch which would include socials.

In an article I spotted today through the Security Box, The Ars Technica article indicate that socials were taken as part of 300,000 files released by the Russian group.

The ars technica article is titled Big data trove dumped after LA Unified School District says no to ransomware crooks and is an ujpdate of the three articles written by the news agencies.

I wonder if those three articles wee updated or whether they were left alone? Better yet, write a new article like I tend to do.

I don’t normally update blog posts of past articles linked or discussions because people will never know I updated it.

For example, it doesn’t make sense for me to update that blog post, as those who received it by email will never know I updated it.

Writing new posts with new information I feel is better. You can always link to the older content.

As for LAUSD? I agree on their thinking on the ars article. Their stance on paying the syndicates is a resounding “hell no!” If they have the backups and resources on getting the resources that were down back up, use it!

The thing that is not surprising is that the Pring Nightmare vulnerability which was patched numerous times within the past two or so years bit LAUSD apparently. I say apparently, as I don’t want to say for sure this is the case.

Whatever is going on with this group, we need to to take them seriously.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is the second biggest school district in the US, behind the New York City Department of Education, making it a trophy of sorts for ransomware groups that prey on these organizations.

About the Vice Society which are in the other three articles mentioned by name, this Ars article says:

Vice Society is a Russian-speaking ransomware group that has emerged over the past couple of years to become a menace, mainly to small- and middle-sized companies. The group specializes in human-operated ransomware attacks, as opposed to automated attack techniques favored by many of its peers. Callow said in a direct message that the Vice Society gang attacked at least eight other US school districts, colleges, and universities so far in 2022.

There’s plenty more, so please read the ars article Big data trove dumped after LA Unified School District says no to ransomware crooks for the latest and thanks Michael for posting this to my list! The JRN appreciates it.