Thousands of students, parents, and teachers have counted on PowerSchool to keep their data safe, but some feel they have been let down.
According to education leaders, 50 of its staff members and 20 local education agencies received threatening emails demanding payment to keep their information secret.
“It is certainly unacceptable that these families and public servants have had their data compromised again,” said North Carolina Superintendent Mo Green.
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Green said the data taken from PowerSchool is identical to the breach in January, so they don’t believe this one is new.
“PowerSchool did assure its customers that the compromised data would not be shared and had been destroyed. Unfortunately, that, at least at this point, is proving to be incorrect,” said Green.
Information accessed in the breach includes student and staff names, contact information, social security numbers, birthdates, medical notes, and guardian information.
PowerSchool’s contract with North Carolina is up in July, and the state has already moved on to a new company called Infinite Campus.
“We also investigated Infinite Campus security systems, and we are pleased with how they are designed,” said Green.
In terms of cutting some kind of deal with the hackers, Green said that is not going to happen.
“The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has not and will not engage with these threat actors; we are prohibited by law from doing so,” said Green.
State officials said not to engage if anyone reaches out to you, threatening to use your information. Instead, contact the cybersecurity team with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
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