The PowerSchool Hacker, 20-year-old Matthew Lane, was sentenced in federal court Tuesday to four years in prison and ordered to pay over $14 million in restitution. He was convicted of orchestrating one of the largest education-related data breaches in history.
Lane, a former Assumption University freshman, carried out a cyberattack that compromised the sensitive information of more than 60 million students and 10 million educators across North America.
According to federal prosecutors, Lane was a “sophisticated and experienced cybercriminal” who hacked into PowerSchool, a major education technology company that provides student information systems to schools and districts across the U.S. and Canada.
Read the company’s official statement here: SIS Incident | PowerSchool
Largest Exposure of Student Data in History
In December 2024, Lane breached PowerSchool’s systems and transferred the stolen records to a leased server in Ukraine. Prosecutors said that three months later, the company received a ransom demand of $2.85 million in Bitcoin, threatening to “destroy your company and bankrupt it to the point of no absolute return” if payment was not made.
