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PowerSchool Cybersecurity Incident

PowerSchool Cybersecurity Incident

Pitt County Schools was made aware of a recent cybersecurity incident involving PowerSchool by the North Carolina Department of Instruction (NCDPI). The incident impacted student and staff data globally.

We are still in the early stages of this development and in the information gathering process.  However, our IT Department has been working with PowerSchool and NCDPI. From their analysis, it appears that no student's password, grades, or social security number was accessed by the hacker. However, other student information, including medical, discipline, and custody related alerts, demographic data but not EC or 504 status, student UID, and contact information, was compromised. It also appears that all staff members with PowerSchool access had their phone numbers, email addresses, addresses, and UIDs compromised. Additionally, the hacker accessed approximately 60 active staff members' social security numbers.

We were informed by PowerSchool that it has confirmed that the breach involved unauthorized access due to compromised credentials of one of its contract employees. PowerSchool has stated that the threat has been contained, the accessed data was not shared and the hacker destroyed the data obtained. Importantly, per PowerSchool, there are no additional copies of the compromised data in existence. PowerSchool is also working with law enforcement to monitor the dark web for any data exposure.

Upon notification of this incident, Pitt County Schools has been in communication with NCDPI and Powerschool and will continue to actively work alongside both entities to ensure that all notifications required of PowerSchool are conducted. It is important to stress that there is nothing that PCS could have done to avoid this situation as we did not have administrative access to the maintenance tunnel where the breach occurred.

Our commitment to protect student and educator data is a top priority.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RESOURCES
PowerSchool
https://www.powerschool.com/security/sis-incident/ 

NCDPI
https://www.dpi.nc.gov/educators/home-base/powerschool-sis

NCDOJ
https://ncdoj.gov/protecting-consumers/protecting-your-identity/free-security-freeze/