The US EDTECH giant PowerSchool has begun notification to individuals affected by data infringement in December 2024, which is likely to affect millions of North American students and teachers.
PowerSchool is a simple update on Monday, and the attacker is stolen to access the company's customer support portal using the stolen account qualification and remove the data of a large number of sensitive students and teachers. I confirmed that I was using it, so I mentioned it with a simple update on Monday. PowerSchool earlier told TechCrunch that the hacked account was not protected by multiple authentication.
California, based in California, has already submitted data infringement notifications to Main States. The Main State Law usually requires organizations to disclose the total number of individuals known to be affected by violations, but PowerSchool has not disclosed this number yet.
Hackers have been quoted by multiple information sources, who are allegedly accessed by more than 62 million students and 9.5 million teachers by PowerSchool violation. PowerSchool states on a website that more than 60 million students use that technology.
When asked if the reported numbers of 62 million students affected by the violation were accurate, the company (through CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS FIRM FTI CONSULTING), a PowerSchool spokeman) We are progressing to “cannot be confirmed” for individuals affected by the company's data review process. As PowerSchool progresses, the organization, in addition to providing renewal to the state of the state, may be higher than the 33,000 residents that have been affected by 33,000 people reported so far. It suggests that there is.
“This is a complicated process, because on -premises data reviews need additional collaboration between PowerSchool and those customers,” said PowerSchool's spokeswoman.
I confirmed that millions of students had already been influenced
Many questions have not been answered about PowerSchool's data infringement. It is still unknown who was responsible for the attack. It is said that there is evidence that PowerSchool's stolen data has been deleted. Or the amount paid to hackers in the demand of ransom. The lack of information surrounding the incident was forced to investigate the impact and scale of the violation by cooperating with the affected school districts.
In an incident page post, PowerSchool states that “the answer varies depending on the individual customers and depends on the selection of customers or the policy and requirements of the district”, so it has not yet been able to confirm which type of confidential data has been accessed. I am. TechCrunch has heard from multiple school districts affected by violations that “all” in the history data stored in PowerSchool, including confidential data such as information on the child's access to children, was accessed. 。
Last week, the Toronto District Board of Education (TSDB), which confirmed that hackers had accessed student data for nearly 40 years, have been the worst hit organization so far, and almost 1.5 million student data is filmed. It was done. In a letter to parents seen by TechCrunch, TDSB confirmed that the stolen data contains gender, grade information, medical data, and details of the accommodation.
Bleeping computer reports that more than 500,000 students have been listed in the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) among those affected by the violation. In a statement to TechCrunch, CBE's spokesman said, “the Board has no confirmation of PowerSchool or confirmation of the details of the adopted data.”
The affected school district has notified people who have been stolen during the PowerSchool violation. The West ADA school district in Idaho, which has about 40,000 students in the K-12 class, stated that TechnoCrunch has accessed the current and former students' life safety health and grades.
Alexandria, Virginia, which provides services to more than 16,000 students, has confirmed that student data has been infringed. In a letter sent to parents, the district states that hackers accessed student personal information, medical data, and free dietary status.
Rochester City School District confirmed that 134,000 students were affected by PowerSchool violations in the website statement. Districts of 46 schools in New York stated that accessed information includes legal warnings, medical diagnosis, and conditions.