The Florida Department of Education says hackers breached its student financial aid website, potentially exposing the personal information of roughly 4.9 million people. The department discovered the intrusion on October 19 and publicly disclosed it on October 29.
“At this time, we believe the incident was limited to the Florida Student Financial Aid website (FloridaStudentFinancialAidSG.org) and may have impacted approximately 4.9 million individuals,” the department said. The website is the online hub for Florida's state-funded scholarship and grant programs, including the Bright Futures scholarship program.
Names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and gender codes are among the data types the attackers may have accessed. The department has warned that anyone who has ever applied for financial aid in the state could be among those affected, and that the specific data involved may vary from person to person.
The department said it launched its incident response procedures after detecting the threat and has since contained the breach. The Florida Digital Service and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are assisting, and the department notified the Florida Office of the Attorney General in accordance with state data breach notification requirements.
The department has not disclosed how the attackers got in or who is responsible, and no threat group appears to have publicly claimed the attack. The investigation remains ongoing, with officials stating that additional information will be published as verified details become available.
According to the department, students' existing aid is safe. The breach will not delay financial aid disbursements or tuition payments, nor will it change eligibility for its scholarships, grants and student loans. Some websites and online services may experience temporary disruption while remediation work continues.
