A Massachusetts student agreed to admit his guilt for federal accusations on piracy and launching one of the largest US education technology companies, Prosecutors confirmed Tuesday.
Matthew D. Lane, 19, is accused of using stolen connection credentials to access the network of an anonymous software company that serves schools across North America and elsewhere to steal the personal information of more than 60 million students and 10 million teachers.
The stolen personal information included names, addresses, telephone numbers, social security numbers and medical information and school grades. In some cases, hackers have stolen decades of student historical data.
While the company was not named, the federal prosecutors described specific details that match the breach of data in the Powerschool educational software, which revealed in January that they had already been disturbed by August and September 2024.
Prosecutors say Lane has worked with an anonymous co-conspirator who lived in Illinois to launch the training software manufacturer for approximately $ 2.85 million in encryption, according to the criminal complaint.
Powerschool confirmed TechCrunch in January that he had paid hackers to delete the stolen data, but refused to say how much he paid. Earlier this month, several school areas said that they had been trying to blackmail since then that the stolen students had not been destroyed. Powerschool said blackmail efforts were not related to a new incident, as “data samples match the data previously closed in December”.
NBC News was First report About the Lane Recognition Agreement.
Powerschool spokesman Beth Kebler said the company was aware of the deposition and postponed comments to the US lawyer’s office on Massachusetts, who refused to name the victims per email by an anonymous representative of Techcrunch.
When asked, Keebler did not question the ransom amount as noted by the prosecutors.
Lane is also accused of hacking and deceiving another company, which prosecutors said he was a US telecommunications provider. Prosecutors did not call the company in the invocation agreement.
Lane Sean Smith’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comments.
He was informed with a response by the US Public Prosecutor’s Office about Massachusetts.
