Napa Valley College is a community college located in Napa, California. This institution has more than 8,000 students at a time and offers classes in child development, visual arts, maintains a learning winery, and has a performing arts center. The school was founded in 1942 and has grown into a major public institution since then.
The intrusion experts don't fully explain the mechanism used in the Napa Valley College data breach, but an individual was able to get into the school's file networks by way of a digital attack. Once the person gained access, they were able to use that access to read, copy and manipulate confidential files of students, faculty, and parents of students.
The Napa Valley College breach was detected on June 10, 2022. Officials from Napa Valley College claim that the attack was blocked promptly once detected, but a complete investigation of the intrusion wasn't completed until August 18, 2022.
This Napa Valley College data breach impacts students, faculty, and the parents of some students. Anyone that has shared confidential information with the school for enrollment or financial aid purposes may have been exposed in the attack.
The experts didn't release numbers for the file count in the Napa Valley College breach, but thousands of files were likely accessed and copied. With more than 8,000 students and countless past students, a large pool of information was available for the attackers to access and use in harmful ways. If you receive a letter from the college regarding the data breach, consider putting a credit freeze in place, using a credit monitoring service, and also putting a fraud alert in place. Taking these actions will help to protect you against future financial and identity harm.