Students’ names, staff data compromised in state school cyberattack

More than five years of Queensland state school student and staff data has been compromised after a cyberattack breached the Education Department’s online learning platform.

A statement from Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said the breach had potentially revealed names, email addresses and school locations.

“Early advice is students and staff working or studying at Education Queensland schools since 2020, when the former government introduced the online system, have been affected,” he said.

Langbroek said the Education Department had no evidence that passwords, dates of birth or financial information were accessed.

The cybersecurity breach affected a third-party educational technology company, Instructure, which the Education Department uses for its QLearn online learning platform.

Langbroek said the breach was global, and was expected to affect up to 2 million people and 9000 institutions in total.

He said the department was contacting families and teachers, prioritising those with known family and domestic violence, or those known to Child Safety.

“The Department of Education will continue to update Queenslanders as further information is available,” he said.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.