Paying hackers for a pinky promise

Educational institutions across the UK and beyond are currently reeling after Instructure handed over a settlement to criminals in exchange for a digital receipt of data destruction. This unfortunate breach of 3.5 terabytes of student data suggests that 275 million records are now protected only by the goodwill of the very people who stole them in the first place. Guarding against this requires a healthy dose of skepticism regarding third-party platforms, as we are now apparently in the business of funding the retirement plans of international extortion groups.