Cybercriminals are attempting to extort Britain’s Department for Education (DfE) after compromising what the criminals said was more than 600,000 pieces of data allegedly including names, email addresses and phone numbers. A spokesperson for the DfE said the number refers to lines of data, rather than the count of individuals affected. The breach was claimed by extortionists calling themselves ExfilSquad who are demanding a ransom in exchange for not releasing the information. Ransomware attacks on central government have dwindled in recent years, according to data from Britain's privacy regulator. More recent data is unavailable.