{"id":210399,"date":"2026-05-07T14:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T18:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/report-data-breaches-impacted-9m-north-carolinians-in-2025-wral-com\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T18:25:09","slug":"report-data-breaches-impacted-9m-north-carolinians-in-2025-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/report-data-breaches-impacted-9m-north-carolinians-in-2025-wral-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Data breaches impacted 9M+ North Carolinians in 2025 :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Report: Data breaches impacted 9M+ North Carolinians in 2025 :: WRAL.com<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.wral.com\/news\/local\/data-breach-north-carolina-millions-may-2026\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-07 14:22:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.wral.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEach year, since at least 2023, the number of data breaches
\nin North Carolina have been identified as \u201crecord breaking\u201d by the state\u2019s
\njustice department.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWRAL Investigates dug through the\u00a0latest report from the NC
\nDepartment of Justice after learning of another data breach impacting students
\nand staff across the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAccording to Wake County Public School System, they were
\nnotified of a
\ncybersecurity incident involving Canvas, a statewide learning management
\nsystem run by Instructure. District leaders said they believe student and staff
\ndata may have been accessed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe NCDOJ report shows a total of 2,349 data breaches,
\nimpacting more than nine million North Carolinians. Most of the time, criminals
\nuse hacking or phishing methods to get access to sensitive information.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Federal Bureau of Investigation also publishes annual
\nreports more broadly focused on cyber-enabled crime. The FBI reports North
\nCarolinians lost $431,561,716 to internet crimes across 25,940 complaints.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAccording to the DOJ report, 155 security breaches affected the
\neducation industry. That makes up seven percent of all breaches in 2025. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cSchools hold massive amounts of sensitive data, but often
\nthey rely heavily on third party vendors. Attackers target educational
\ninstitutions, because one breach can impact thousands of students and staff all at
\nonce. In many cases, the goal is really extortion, phishing or selling the data,\u201d
\nsaid Kimberly Simon.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShe\u2019s the CEO of Growth Office Partners, a company that
\nhelps businesses with cybersecurity and modernization. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIn late 2024, a hacker accessed
\ndata from student information system PowerSchool \u2013 putting millions of
\nNorth Carolinian\u2019s information at risk. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOfficials said the lack of multifactor authentication played
\na role in that cyberattack. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWRAL Investigates reported
\nthe company paid a ransom to the hacker. NCDPI chief information Vanessa Wrenn
\ntold us then the department reviews the data security of each contractor each
\nyear.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDuring Thursday\u2019s State Board of Education meeting, Wrenn asked
\nschool board members to approve $1.1 million in funding for cybersecurity
\ncontracts.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cAround 70% of our cyberattacks come through a phishing
\nsimulation. This certainly helps our schools and training our staff,\u201d she said
\nduring the meeting. \u201cIt is a very important tool for our schools.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlan Duncan noted the news reports about recent data
\nbreaches during the meeting, as well. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cIt\u2019s important to note that this training is very helpful
\nto us, so that DPI information is not subject of having a gap that someone
\ncould exploit,\u201d he said. \u201cUnfortunately, some vendors we\u2019ve had have had some gaps
\nthat have been exploited. That is something that we are then having to deal
\nwith. I think we should, make clear: these are not gaps in our system to this
\npoint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe FBI recommends the following mitigating practices for
\ncompanies: <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2022 Create off-site or offline backups and regularly maintain
\nbackup and restoration. Additionally, ensure all backup data is encrypted,
\nimmutable (i.e., cannot be altered or deleted), and covers the entire
\norganization\u2019s data infrastructure. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2022 Eliminate default passwords and credentials when
\ninstalling software and require all accounts with password logins (e.g.,
\nservice accounts, admin accounts, and domain admin accounts) to comply with
\nNIST\u2019s standards. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2022 Disable and remove unnecessary protocols by default. Audit
\nuser accounts with administrative privileges and configure access controls
\naccording to the principle of least privilege. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2022 Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all services
\nto the extent possible, particularly for webmail, virtual private networks, and
\naccounts that access critical systems. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2022 Secure initial access points – To help in detecting the
\nransomware, implement a tool that logs and reports all network traffic,
\nincluding lateral movement activity on a network. Endpoint detection and
\nresponse (EDR) tools are particularly useful for detecting lateral connections
\nas they have insight into common and uncommon network connections for each
\nhost. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2022 Segment networks to prevent the spread of ransomware.
\nNetwork segmentation can help prevent the spread of ransomware by controlling
\ntraffic flows between\u2014and access to\u2014 various subnetworks and by restricting
\nadversary lateral movement. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2022 Keep all operating systems, software, and firmware up to
\ndate. Timely patching is one of the most efficient and cost-effective steps an
\norganization can take to minimize its exposure to cybersecurity threats.
\nPrioritize patching known exploited vulnerabilities in internet-facing systems.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Report: Data breaches impacted 9M+ North Carolinians in 2025 :: WRAL.com https:\/\/www.wral.com\/news\/local\/data-breach-north-carolina-millions-may-2026\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-07…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.wral.com\/17bceb76-8a35-54bb-89d1-612f4137a127?w=1200&h=630","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[30,24,28,31,35,25],"class_list":["post-210399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-breach","tag-cybersecurity","tag-data-security","tag-exploit","tag-hacker","tag-phishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210401,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210399\/revisions\/210401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}