Posted on 04/23/25
| News Source: WBAL TV
Baltimore, MD - April 23, 2025 - The number of people impacted by a massive cyberattack on Baltimore City Public Schools increased to 31,000, 11 News Investigates has learned.
On Tuesday, 11 News Investigates revealed that the criminal group known as Cloak Ransomware gained access to the school district's information technology systems in February, taking sensitive personal information from some 25,000 students, current and former employees, volunteers, and contractors.
Information stolen included Social Security numbers, passport details, birth certificates and other data that could be used to steal someone's identity.
Also Tuesday, City Schools mailed notification letters to those impacted, which includes some 1,100 current students, as well as more than half of the district's current employees.
But later Tuesday night, the numbers changed. Jeff Karberg, director of the Maryland attorney general's Identity Theft Unit, received notification from City Schools about the increased scope of the cyberattack affecting 31,125 people.
"Any time a breach is impacting five digits' worth of people, I consider that sort of inherently a lot — that's big," Karberg told 11 News Investigates. "You never like to see a data breach where there could be children involved or people who have shared really extensive documentation."
With some of the personal information already posted on the dark web, Karberg said a big risk could be new account fraud.
"That's where the identity thieves use that stolen information to apply for things like credit cards or car loans, cellphones, apartments," Karberg told 11 News Investigates. "If this data is out there, people will use it to steal identities."
Karberg said that a security freeze, also called a credit freeze, is the single biggest step people can take to protect themselves.
"It's always much easier to convince people to freeze their credit reports after they've been a victim, but I want to say, it's an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure here," Karberg said. "I hope that everyone can take steps to protect their identities, and, hopefully, no one has identity theft as a result of this."
City Schools is also offering two years of free credit monitoring to those impacted. The district established a call center at 888-562-7139 to answer questions and help impacted individuals enroll in mitigation services. The call center will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, except holidays.
Karberg revealed that data breaches in Maryland increased from 181 in 2013 to 1,553 in 2023.
"There are now some months (when) we're totally eclipsing what it used to be annually," Karberg told 11 News Investigates.
Karberg encouraged anyone impacted to contact the ID Theft Unit by calling 410-576-6491 or emailing idtheft@oag.state.md.us.
The Baltimore City Public Schools Board of School Commissioners approved an emergency contract Tuesday night to hire the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to conduct a forensic analysis of the data breach, 11 News Investigates has learned.