Hundreds of Swiss students and teachers have data stolen

Basel is one of many Swiss municipalities to be targeted by hackers. jokerphoto

A total 761 people had sensitive personal data hacked during a cyberattack on the education department of the Swiss city of Basel.

The criminal group BianLian hacked into the municipal authority’s servers via a malicious email in January and published the data when ransom demands were not met.

Files with “potentially sensitive personal content” were posted on the dark web, along with non-sensitive data from a further 372 people.

An analysis of the dark web showed that the most sensitive data belonged to 224 students, 195 teachers and 342 education department employees.

The dark web is a part of the internet hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through specialised anonymity-providing tools.

Basel is one of several Swiss municipalities to have been hacked by criminals in the recent past.

The University of Zurich and other educational bodies were also hit by cyberattacks earlier this year.

Other hacks have targeted Swiss companies, such as defence contractor RUAG, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).