The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), a national nonprofit with 3,600 partner institutions including Victoria College, recently identified a data breach that compromised student data within its MOVEit secure file transfer protocol.
NSC provides enrollment and degree verification to the National Student Loan Data System, private employers, external scholarship organizations, and member schools to conduct prior and subsequent enrollment reviews.
What Happened?
An unauthorized party obtained certain files transferred through NSC’s MOVEit software, which could allow unauthorized access to files being transferred using the tool.
Upon learning of the vulnerability, NSC promptly launched an investigation and took steps to secure its MOVEit environment, including implementing patches to its MOVEit software. NSC reported the issue to law enforcement and has been working with leading cybersecurity experts to understand the issue’s impact on its organization and systems.
Impact on VC Students
No systems operated or maintained by Victoria College were breached. This information is being provided so everyone within the VC community can take steps to protect their personal information.
Upon review of the affected files with the assistance of a third-party provider, NSC determined that general student directory information, including name and contact info, was exposed for nearly 5,000 VC students. However, no other personal identifiable information was released for VC students.
What You Can Do To Protect Yourself
- Be vigilant. Cybercriminals could use stolen personal data from this breach to create phishing attacks in the next few weeks and months. Even if emails, notices, or text messages contain accurate information about you or one of your accounts, you should always verify the source before responding to ensure it is authentic.
- Monitor your financial accounts and credit. Monitor your credit report for unusual activity. If you believe you are being targeted, consider putting a credit freeze in place to thwart scammers.
- Secure your accounts. Enable two-factor authentication and use strong passwords for all of your accounts. Never give someone your password or a two-factor code if asked for it, even if they claim to be from a trusted organization.
More Info
For more information, view NSC’s MOVEit Security Issue Update. For any questions or concerns, please send an email to IT-Security@VictoriaCollege.edu.