Stolen account details of people working in higher education are increasingly appearing on the dark web, raising the risk of cyberattacks for universities and research organisations.
More than 144,000 username and password combinations belonging to people involved in education and research in the UK were found to be compromised in the 12 months to June this year, digital services organisation Jisc has found.
The findings follow a spate of high-profile cyberattacks on major institutions, with a hijacked student records platform at the University of Nottingham recently leading to the details of hundreds of thousands of students and alumni being seized by hackers.
The rising threat level was uncovered during Jisc’s regular monitoring of “compromised credentials”, as part of its Janet Network service, built to support universities, colleges and research institutions with their digital connectivity.
Monthly figures for the 2025-26 period reveal an upward trend in the number of vulnerable passwords and accounts. Fewer than 10,000 compromised identities were uncovered in June last year but, a year on, there were 15,000 recorded.
