A 19-year-old college student from Massachusetts has agreed to plead guilty to hacking education software provider PowerSchool, in a breach that compromised data on tens of millions of students and teachers. The breach led to ransom demands targeting both the company and individual school districts.
Matthew Lane, a student at Assumption University in Worcester, is accused of stealing sensitive data by gaining unauthorized access to PowerSchool’s systems using login credentials belonging to a contractor. Prosecutors say he then transferred the stolen data to a server hosted in Ukraine in December 2024.
Shortly afterward, PowerSchool received a $2.85 million bitcoin ransom demand threatening to expose names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and other personal details of more than 60 million students and 10 million teachers unless the company complied. PowerSchool disclosed the breach in January 2025 and admitted to paying a ransom to prevent the data from being leaked.
Lane’s case is significant as it is the first time a suspect has been publicly linked to the breach, which impacted PowerSchool — a platform used by over 18,000 schools across North America. U.S. Attorney Leah Foley condemned Lane’s actions, saying they “instilled fear in parents that their kids’ information had been leaked into the hands of criminals – all to put a notch in his hacking belt.”
Court documents reveal that Lane also conspired in a previous cyber extortion scheme involving a telecommunications company, demanding a $200,000 ransom. He now faces charges of cyber extortion, aggravated identity theft, and unauthorized access to protected computers, carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison.
Lane’s attorney did not comment on the plea deal, and PowerSchool has not disclosed further details beyond confirming ongoing extortion attempts aimed at multiple school districts affected by the breach.