Overview
- Matthew Lane, in ABC interviews that aired Tuesday, said he was addicted to hacking and voiced remorse as he began serving a four-year sentence and more than $14 million in restitution.
- In 2024 he used a stolen employee login to access PowerSchool and copy student and staff records that included Social Security numbers, birth dates, and medical details, then a note demanded about $2.8 million in Bitcoin.
- Investigators say he moved some of the stolen files to a server he leased in Ukraine during the extortion.
- PowerSchool offered two years of free credit monitoring and later published a March 2025 CrowdStrike report that limited the breach to certain student information system customers and found no malware in core systems.
- The FBI reports a rising wave of teen hackers with an average arrest age of 19 and says it is still investigating Lane's unnamed co-conspirators.