US Schools Leaked 24.5 Million Records in 1,327 Data Breaches Since 2005

By Sam Cook Data Journalist, Privacy Advocate and Cord-Cutting Expert

Since 2005, K–12 school districts and colleges/universities across the US have experienced over 1,300 data breaches, affecting more than 24.5 million records.

Our team of researchers analyzed data over the past 15 years to find out where the hot spots are, the biggest causes of these breaches, and how many students have been affected by each breach.

What did we find?

• California is a hot spot for both college and K-12 data breaches with the most records affected (but is also home to the most of these institutions)
• Arizona is one of the worst-hit states by number of records affected
• Wyoming is the only state to have no known reported education breaches*
• Hackings are the most common types of breaches
• 2008 had the most education data breaches, but 2013 and 2017 were the biggest years by number of records affected
• Public institutions are affected by breaches at a higher rate compared to private ones