Helsinki suffers information breach after hackers exploit unpatched flaw

The Metropolis of Helsinki is investigating an information breach in its training division, which it found in late April 2024, impacting tens of hundreds of scholars, guardians, and personnel.

Although details about the assault was circulated on Might 2, 2024, town’s authorities shared extra particulars in a press convention earlier right this moment.

Based on the small print disclosed right this moment, an unauthorized actor gained entry to a community drive after exploiting a vulnerability in a distant entry server.

Whereas the officers didn’t state what distant entry product was focused, they shared {that a} safety patch for the vulnerability was obtainable on the time of the assault however had not been put in.

The accessed drive contained tens of tens of millions of information, most devoid of personally identifiable data (PII). Nonetheless, some included usernames, e mail addresses, private IDs, and bodily addresses.

Moreover, the uncovered drive contained details about charges, childhood training and care, youngsters’s standing, welfare requests, medical certificates, and different extremely delicate data.

“This is a very serious data breach, with possible, unfortunate consequences for our customers and personnel. We regret this situation deeply,” commented metropolis supervisor Jukka-Pekka Ujula.

“Considering the number of users in the city’s services now and in previous years, in the worst case, this data breach affects over 80,000 students and their guardians.”

“The breach also affects all of our personnel, as the perpetrator gained access to all personnel usernames and email addresses.”

As a result of massive measurement of the uncovered information, investigating what has been compromised is predicted to take a while.

In the meantime, the Metropolis of Helsinki has notified the Information Safety Ombudsman, the Police, and Traficom’s Nationwide Cyber Security Centre accordingly.

At this stage, these impacted folks don’t have to contact the police however are requested to report any suspicious communications to “kaskotietoturvatilanne@hel.fi” or “+358 9 310 27139” and comply with the recommendation offered by Traficom to information breach victims.

By the time of penning this, no ransomware teams have assumed duty for the assault, so the perpetrators stay unknown.

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