College Student Agrees to Plead Guilty in PowerSchool Case: Prosecutors Say Data on More Than 60 Million Students Was Held for a Bitcoin Ransom
The Justice Department announced on May 20, 2025, that Matthew D. Lane, 19, of Sterling, in Worcester County, Massachusetts, had been charged and had agreed to plead guilty in connection with hacking into the computer networks of two U.S.-based companies and extorting the companies for ransoms. Lane, a student at Assumption University in Worcester, agreed to plead guilty to one count each of cyber extortion conspiracy, cyber extortion, unauthorized access to protected computers, and aggravated identity theft. A plea hearing had not yet been scheduled by the court.
According to court filings, the first extortion ran from April 2024 to May 2024, when Lane allegedly agreed with others to extort a $200,000 ransom payment from a telecommunications company by threatening to publicly disseminate customer data previously stolen from the company's network. When the company questioned whether paying would in fact end the threat, Lane allegedly responded: "We are the only ones with a copy of this data now. Stop this nonsense [or] your executives and employees will see the same fate. Make the correct decision and pay the ransom. If you keep stalling, it will be leaked."
The second scheme was far larger. Prosecutors allege that Lane used stolen login credentials to access the network of a second victim company, a software and cloud storage company that served school systems in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere, and caused students' and teachers' personally identifying information stored on that network to be transferred to a computer server he leased in Ukraine. The company and others then received threats that the personal information of more than 60 million students and 10 million teachers, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, medical information, residential addresses, parent and guardian information, and passwords, would be "leaked worldwide" if a ransom of approximately $2.85 million in Bitcoin was not paid.
The charging documents did not name either victim company. Reuters reported on May 20, 2025, that a person familiar with the matter confirmed the second company was PowerSchool, the education software company based in Folsom, California, which had disclosed in January 2025 that its systems were breached. U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said the defendant allegedly stole private information about millions of children and teachers, imposed substantial financial costs on his victims, and instilled fear in parents that their children's information had leaked into the hands of criminals, all, she said, "to put a notch in his hacking belt."
Kimberly Milka, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Boston Division, said Lane allegedly hid behind his keyboard to gain unauthorized access to an education software provider to obtain sensitive data used in an attempt to extort millions of dollars, and also allegedly conspired to extort more money from a telecommunications provider over its confidential data. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen A. Kearney of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case, and the Assumption University Police Department provided valuable assistance.
The charges of cyber extortion conspiracy, cyber extortion, and unauthorized access to protected computers each carry a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. Aggravated identity theft carries a mandatory two-year prison sentence consecutive to any sentence on the computer charges. The details contained in the charging document are allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. (Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts)
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于马萨诸塞州伍斯特（Worcester）的 Harold D. Donohue 联邦大楼暨美国联邦法院（资料图），本案起诉书即向马萨诸塞联邦地区法院伍斯特法庭提交。Pvmoutside 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Harold D. Donohue Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Worcester, Massachusetts (file photo); the charges were filed in the Worcester court of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. By Pvmoutside, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
