Nelnet Data Breach Affects Over 2.5 Million Individuals Borrowing from OSLA and EdFinancial

Over 2.5 million individuals with federal student loans from Oklahoma Student Loan Authority (OSLA) and EdFinancial Services, LLC (EdFinancial) have been impacted by the recent data breach of Nelnet Servicing, LLC (Nelnet), a technology services provider. Nelnet’s services, including their web portal, are used by OSLA and EdFinancial to give borrowers the ability to create and access their loan accounts. In June of 2022, unauthorized and currently undisclosed actors breached Nelnet’s systems and persisted in them until July 22, 2022. Nelnet currently suspects that a vulnerability was exploited to gain this access and the notification letter emphasized that no Nelnet-serviced borrowers were impacted by this incident. The data that has been exposed in this data breach includes name, address, email address, phone number, and Social Security number (SSN). No individual’s payment information or account numbers were impacted. In their notification letters, EdFinancial and OSLA noted that there is currently no evidence of any actual or attempted misuse of information from this incident and offered impacted individuals free access to the Experian 24-month identity theft protection service. Due to the breach involving Federal Student Aid (FSA) providers and the risk of exposure being magnified, law firm “Markovits, Stock & DeMarco” has already launched an investigation on the “potential of a class action lawsuit.” Threat actors have the ability to utilize exposed data in phishing campaigns, social engineering, and impersonation schemes.  As a result, those impacted by this data breach must remain vigilant against suspicious communications as well as fraudulent charges.