The PowerSchool data leak, as detailed in the Infosecurity Magazine article, serves as a stark reminder of the critical importance of protecting user credentials by implementing a service to check users username and passwords to see if they are known to be compromised and enforcing a strong password change policy. Here's what happened and how credential security--or lack thereof--was the real culprit.
The Breach:
Hackers gained access to PowerSchool's system, likely through stolen credentials, exploiting a vulnerability in the PowerSource support portal.
This highlights a common attack vector: compromised credentials. Weak passwords, phishing scams, or credential reuse across platforms can grant unauthorized access to sensitive data.
Why Protecting Credentials Matters:
They are the First Line of Defense: Usernames and passwords are the frontline defense against unauthorized access. Strong, unique credentials make it significantly more difficult for attackers to break in. And in this case, username and password could have been required to be updated and monitored for security.
Stolen Credentials Can Have Far-Reaching Impacts: In PowerSchool's case, compromised credentials led to the exposure of millions of students' and educators' personal data. This can have serious consequences, including identity theft, financial fraud, and even emotional distress. However, the damage goes beyond that when we consider that most often, a stolen credential is used to get into other accounts the user has online, for example where the user has reused the same credentials at banks, e-retailers, airlines or anywhere they have done business.
Compromised Credentials Can Lead to Lateral Movement: Once attackers gain access with stolen credentials, they can move laterally within a system, potentially accessing even more sensitive data.
According to the 2024 Data Breach Report from the Identity Theft Resource Center, Education has been in the top five industries targeted by cybercriminals for the past two years.
Lessons Learned:
PowerSchool could have avoided this breach, or at least minimized its impact, by following the four steps below.
Assess - PowerSchool could have found weaknesses in their system with a simple credential pentest, highlighting areas that needed additional attention for proper security.
Detect - By deploying tools that constantly screen credentials for weaknesses, compromised users would have been identified before they caused a problem.
Prevent - Once identified, users should have been required to update compromised credentials, usernames and passwords, for the best protection against infiltration of the PowerSchool system.
Respond - Lastly, after a breach is confirmed, limiting exposure and liability is key. Comparing the breached data to data that has been actively used points where to focus efforts of containment and limiting damage.
The PowerSchool incident exemplifies the critical need for robust credential security practices. By following the outlined steps above, organizations like PowerSchool can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches and protect the sensitive information of staff and consumers entrusted to them.
What would we do?
myNetWatchman has a full suite of products that manage every stage of an organization's security needs from assessing weaknesses in ATO security, to detecting and preventing ATO events and breach response. See more at our website www.mynetwatchman.tech.
However, since the breach happened, a proper response is necessary to remediate the impact of the breach.
Compare the breached data against our repository of 35 billion compromised credentials to see if we have already seen some activity using compromised credentials.
Determine whether the credentials have been used by bad actors previously
Determine which credentials are actively being used/tested, contact those users and have them take steps to secure their credentials.
Require usernames and passwords to be updated.
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