UK's Pearson notifies thousands of U.S. students of data breach

Reuters
Updated
The company logo is displayed outside the Pearson offices in London

(Reuters) - British education company Pearson Plc <PSON.L> on Thursday said it has notified customers of a data breach that resulted in unauthorized access to about 13,000 school and university accounts, mainly in the United States.

The exposed data was limited to first names, last names, and in some instances dates of birth as well as email addresses, the company said.

"While we have no evidence that this information has been misused, we have notified the affected customers as a precaution," the company said in an emailed statement, adding that the vulnerability leading to the incident has been fixed.

The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported https://on.wsj.com/333azYP that Pearson was notified about the data incident by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March.

The FBI did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)