Massachusetts school district, city hall shutter after cyber incidents
Springfield Public Schools (23,000 students) and Everett city hall in Massachusetts closed after weekend cyber incidents disrupted essential systems.
Springfield Public Schools, serving 23,000 students across more than 60 schools, closed buildings on Tuesday to investigate a cyber incident that disrupted systems needed for essential operations, including phones and attendance reporting. Separately, Everett, Massachusetts (population over 50,000) closed City Hall to the public after a cyberattack discovered Sunday evening impacted its internal network, though police, fire, public works and schools operate normally. The article notes multiple universities and K-12 districts have announced cyberattacks in recent weeks as hackers exploit the new school year for ransom leverage.
MA: Springfield Public Schools will be closed Tuesday after a cyber incident
Springfield Public Schools in Massachusetts closed Tuesday after a cyber incident disrupted systems needed for essential operations while investigators assess scope.
Superintendent Dr. Sonia Dinnall announced Monday that Springfield Public Schools would close Tuesday after a cyber incident disrupted systems required for essential school operations. The closure is intended to support response efforts while investigators assess the extent of the incident. No attribution, ransomware confirmation, or data-theft details have been disclosed yet.
CO: Cyberattack damages files at Salida School District in Colorado
A cyberattack forced Colorado's Salida School District offline on June 29, damaging locally stored files and disrupting administrative operations.
A cyberattack on Salida School District in Colorado began around 6:30 a.m. on June 29 and was detected roughly two hours later, according to a July 2 district notice. Officials shut down the entire network and brought in outside specialists to respond. The attack damaged locally stored files and disrupted administrative operations. No confirmation of data exfiltration or ransomware involvement has been reported.
Mathspace discloses data breach affecting over 1 million people
Mathspace disclosed a Metabase breach exposing data of 1,079,819 students, parents, and staff in Australia and New Zealand.
Mathspace confirmed attackers exploited a vulnerability in its self-hosted Metabase reporting system, gaining administrator access without legitimate login and downloading data on over 1 million people (1,079,819 total) in Australia and New Zealand. Access began August 10, data was downloaded August 27, and the theft was confirmed September 3, 2026. No credentials, academic records, or school-account links were exposed, but affected individuals are warned of targeted phishing. The incident joins a broader campaign against Metabase instances, including Trezor's provider ShipMonk, Framework, and Tally, linked to ShinyHunters via extortion emails and leak-site listings.
PaperCut Flaws Exploited in Attacks on U.S. and European Schools
Attackers are chaining recently disclosed PaperCut flaws CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078 to steal credentials and create privileged accounts at US and European schools.
Arctic Wolf researchers observed threat actors exploiting PaperCut servers via CVE-2026-81578 and CVE-2026-82078, chaining an authentication bypass with remote code execution. Post-exploitation included creating a privileged account named Administrator17, downloading credential-harvesting tools with certutil, Meterpreter Java payloads, and registry hive collection to recover the Windows BootKey and reach the SAM database. PaperCut disclosed active exploitation on August 27, 2026, and CISA added both flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on August 31. PaperCut has a history of exploitation, including attacks that delivered LockBit ransomware.
Attackers Exploit PaperCut Flaws to Steal Credentials From Schools and Universities
Attackers exploit newly disclosed PaperCut auth bypass CVE-2026-81578 and RCE CVE-2026-82078 to steal credentials from schools and universities in the US and Europe.
Arctic Wolf observed threat actors chaining CVE-2026-81578 (authentication bypass) and CVE-2026-82078 (remote code execution) in PaperCut to execute commands, perform reconnaissance, and create privileged accounts on servers at K-12 schools and universities in the US and Europe. Post-exploitation includes registry hive collection with lsa_collect.exe delivered via certutil, Meterpreter Java payloads from 194.180.48.134, and searches of PaperCut config files for passwords, LDAP bindings, and tokens. Stolen logins could provide a pathway into other critical systems across compromised environments.
Mathspace breach exposes data on over a million students and parents
Mathspace confirmed attackers exploited an unpatched Metabase SQL injection flaw to steal personal data of 1,079,819 students, parents, and staff in Australia and New Zealand.
Attackers accessed Mathspace's self-hosted Metabase reporting system without legitimate login, with unauthorized access dating back to 10 August 2026 and data downloaded on 27 August. Exposed data includes names, usernames, email addresses, country, and account metadata; no passwords, academic records, SSO tokens, or API credentials were taken. Framework, Tally, and Kilo Code disclosed similar breaches via the same Metabase SQL injection flaw in August 2026.