University of Sydney says third-party breach impacted ‘small proportion’ of international students and applicants

Last week, the University of Sydney (USYD) disclosed a data breach that may have led to the exposure of personal information on international students and applicants.

USYD said the breach involved an unnamed third-party provider, and that “there is currently no evidence that any personal information has been misused.”

“The University of Sydney is aware of a data breach involving one third-party provider which has resulted at this stage in a limited number of recently applied and enrolled international applicants’ personal data being accessed,” the university explained. “We took immediate steps to secure our systems and contain the incident.”

The disclosure emphasized that all provisional findings indicate no domestic students, employees, alumni or donors were impacted and that the issue was isolated to a single platform.

USYD is continuing to investigate the extent of the breach and says it will contact all affected students and applicants with the necessary information.

“The issue was isolated to a single platform and had no impact on other University systems. There is currently no evidence that any personal information has been misused,” USYD added. “We are working to contact impacted students and applicants and will continue to monitor our systems.”

Until further notice, concerned students are urged to remain vigilant due to potential risks stemming from the security incident. While the university has yet to determine what type of data was accessed during the attack, international students and applicants should be watch out for suspicious correspondence and stick to good cyber hygiene as emphasized in this dedicated section.

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