What You Need to Know about the Scholastic Data Breach

Established in 1920, Scholastic is an American-based multinational and the largest publisher and distributor of children’s books globally. The company’s global headquarters is in New York City. It offers digital and print resources to support learning for pre-kindergarten to grade 12 students. Some of the corporation’s popular children's book series are Clifford the Big Red Dog, Harry Potter, Goosebumps, SPY, Animorphs, and Hunger Games.

In the wake of January 2025, Scholastic became a victim of a data breach that reportedly exposed records, including sensitive information, on at least 8 million individuals. Exposed data includes those of United States-based educational professionals and customers. According to reports, sensitive data exposed in the Scholastic data breach include names, phone numbers, physical addresses, and about 4.2 million unique email addresses.

The hacker responsible for the Scholastic data breach, Parasocial, claims to have gained access to the company’s network by stealing an employee’s login credentials whose computer was hit with malware. Furthermore, they claimed they would have accessed more data but for an export limit on Scholastic’s server.

On the flip side, the hacker says it did not intend to make the breach public and only pilfered the compromised data out of boredom, warning Scholastic not to allow its customers take the hit for its security failures. Parasocial specifically criticized Scholastic’s lack of MFA (multi-factor authentication) as the gateway to this data breach. A Scholastic representative has said the company was still investigating the data breach and Parasocial’s claims as of mid-January 2025. 

When Was the Scholastic Data Breach?

The Scholastic data breach happened on January 8, 2025. The validity of the compromised data was confirmed by Have I Been Pwned, a security incident alerting platform, following prompt alerts to affected customers. While the exposed data set includes around 8 million entities, only over 1 million belong to educators.

How to Check If Your Data Was Breached

Some online tools and services allow people to check if their email addresses have been leaked in recent data breaches. You may use any of such services to confirm if your email address or any other sensitive information was involved in the Scholastic data breach. However, make sure to use reliable and trustworthy sites. Be cautious not to provide your details to an unknown website or platform that may also be out to harvest the sensitive data of unsuspecting users.

Furthermore, it is recommended that you check your bank accounts for any unusual charges that may indicate certain compromised data has been used to access your account. In addition, review your credit report to ensure there are no anomalies, which may only be a sign that certain sensitive information has been leaked to a third party. If you keep getting a high volume of phishing emails or text messages, it may also mean that your sensitive data was compromised in the Scholastic data breach.

What to Do If Your Data Was Breached

As of now, Scholastic has yet to give the general public specific details about the security measures being implemented since the data breach incident became public knowledge. If you have any reason to think that your data was breached in this incident, ensure to change your passwords immediately across all bank and social media accounts tied to your email address. While at it, it is best to use strong, unique passwords for each account.

To further protect yourself, you should consider enabling fraud alerts on your financial accounts through a U.S. credit reporting agency. Once this is done, creditors will, by default, contact you whenever any change is being made to those accounts.

In addition to enabling fraud alerts on your accounts, you may lock or freeze your credit file by contacting any of the credit bureaus in the United States. This will protect your credit files from criminals who may want to apply for credit in your name using compromised information from the Scholastics data breach.

Are There Any Lawsuits Because of the Data Breach?

As of mid-January 2025, there is no information on any lawsuits instituted against Scholastic regarding the recent data breach. Investigations by law enforcement and other relevant agencies on the security incident may be ongoing.

Can My Scholastic Information Be Used for Identity Theft?

Yes. Cybercriminals may exploit breached data from the Scholastic security incident to carry out identity theft if they get their hands on such data. Generally, any information compromised or exposed during data breaches heightens the risk of identity thefts for affected individuals.

In the case of Scholastic data breach, exposed email addresses may be used to obtain impacted persons’ other confidential information, which criminals can use to steal their identities. Ultimately, they can use the data to open fraudulent accounts in their victims’ names and take out loans.

What Can You Do to Protect Yourself Online?

The Scholastic data breach serves as a wake-up call for everyone to take measures that can protect them and their data online. While the company claims to take customers’ data security seriously, hackers were still able to break into their network and access confidential information belonging to at least 8 million customers. This is a stark reminder of the importance of safeguarding your data online.

Generally, the following tips or practices will help you protect yourself online, especially if you have reasons to believe your data has been exposed in a data breach like that of the Scholastic security incident:

• Secure your online accounts and bank and credit card accounts by updating your passwords and PINs, respectively. While updating them, make sure to use unique, strong characters that are not easy to guess. A mix of numbers, uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and special characters is often advised when creating a password for online accounts. Avoid reusing your old passwords. 
• Be vigilant and look out for signs of scams. In many cases, individuals whose data was exposed in data breaches are targeted with phishing emails and messages that appear legitimate. Such communications typically attempt to convince unsuspecting persons to disclose more confidential information or financial account data. Always treat unsolicited communications with caution.
• Avoid providing sensitive personal data or financial information over unsecure websites when shopping online. Before entering any confidential information on an online shopping website or any other site, confirm that the web address starts with https and that there is a tiny padlock symbol on the webpage.
• Learn about cyber threats and cyber security and stay informed on how to fortify yourself against cybercriminals’ attempts using sites like IDStrong. Education is arguably the best defense against social engineering attacks. 
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on your online accounts where possible, as it enhances the protection of those accounts by adding an extra layer of security to them.
• Keep your mobile devices and computers up to date with the latest security software, operating systems, and web browsers. You can turn on automatic updates on your devices to help receive up-to-date fixes and apply them as they are released. The importance of doing this in defending against malware, viruses, and other online threats cannot be overstated.
• Set up secure credit monitoring services to help identify attempts related to identity theft and prompt you of any unusual activity related to credit fraud.