Vaud cyberattack steals data from more than 40,000 school users

A cyberattack in the canton of Vaud, a Swiss administrative region, stole data belonging to about 3,500 teachers and 38,000 pupils, SRF reported. The information included names, email addresses and support requests; no grades, school records or passwords were taken.

Unauthorised access was discovered on Monday. The canton said it immediately disconnected the IT support platform used by its upper secondary and vocational schools from the internet and secured it. Users have been informed.

The canton warned pupils and teachers to watch for phishing attempts, never share passwords and report suspicious messages. It said the Federal Office for Cybersecurity and data protection authorities had been notified, and it would file a criminal complaint.