Chegg Details

Chegg

Santa Clara, California • employees • Education

Industry

Education

Security Incidents

Chegg, Inc., is an American education technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It provides homework help, digital and physical textbook rentals, textbooks, online tutoring, and other student services.

Security Incidents

Chegg Breach of Apr 2023

Severity Score

Moderate

Type

Data Breach

Summary

In April 2023, Chegg, an education technology company, experienced a significant data breach that exposed the personal information of approximately 40 million users. The breach was attributed to a sophisticated cybercriminal group that exploited vulnerabilities in Chegg's security infrastructure. The compromised data included names, email addresses, shipping addresses, and hashed passwords, raising concerns about potential identity theft and phishing attacks. Chegg promptly notified affected users and initiated a comprehensive investigation, working with cybersecurity experts to enhance their ...
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Severity

The Chegg cyber security incident in April 2023 was severe as it was part of multiple data breaches that occurred over the years, with breaches dating back to September 2017. The breaches involved outdated cryptographic hash functions for password protection and failure to provide adequate data security training for employees and contractors, indicating significant security lapses.

Impact

The breach had a notable impact as Chegg stored users' and employees' personal information in plain text, exposing sensitive data to potential unauthorized access. As a result, Chegg had to notify local authorities, offer free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to impacted individuals, and reinforce safeguards to prevent future incidents.