Hanover County Public Schools’ student, staff information hacked in global data breach
HANOVER COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- Hanover County Public Schools has been made aware that some students' and staff's information has been breached following a global data breach with its student information system vendor. On Thursday, Jan. 9, Hanover County Public Schools announced a data breach involving its student information system vendor, PowerSchool, which reportedly impacted school divisions across the country. According to the school division, between Dec. 19 and Dec. 22, a hacker downloaded student and teacher data from thousands of servers hosted by PowerSchool, with one of those servers hosting Hanover Schools' data. According to PowerSchool, the system became aware of the cybersecurity incident on Dec. 28, which involved the unauthorized exportation of personal information from certain PowerSchool Student Information System environments through its customer support portal, PowerSource. According to Hanover Schools, PowerSchool shared on Jan. 8 that the data was destroyed after it paid a fee to the hacker. On Jan. 9, the school district said it was aware that the following data was breached from Hanover Schools: Student name Student address Parent contact information Teacher name Schedule "While PowerSchool’s legal team is confident that the data was destroyed upon payment, additional investigations are underway to help ensure that it was, in fact, destroyed," said Hanover Schools in its Jan. 9 statement. "Please note that PowerSchool is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding this breach." While PowerSchool said Social Security Numbers may have been included in the security breach, Hanover Schools provided an update on Tuesday, Jan. 14, saying that Social Security Numbers for students and staff are not stored in PowerSchool and were not compromised in this data breach. The school district also added that student and staff PowerSchool login credentials were not exposed. Hanover Schools went on to say that its network was not breached and no outside access was gained to the district's network, rather the PowerSchool global network system, which hosts data from thousands of school divisions, was breached. "We have also been assured by PowerSchool that there was nothing [Hanover Schools] could have done to avoid the cybersecurity data breach as it occurred on systems that are owned and operated by PowerSchool," the school district said in its Jan. 14 update. To address questions regarding the breach, Hanover Schools shared a dedicated webpage for families and staff that was created by PowerSchool with more information.
VENN
HANOVER COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- Hanover County Public Schools has been made aware that some students' and staff's information has been breached following a global data breach with its student information system vendor.
On Thursday, Jan. 9, Hanover County Public Schools announced a data breach involving its student information system vendor, PowerSchool, which reportedly impacted school divisions across the country.
According to the school division, between Dec. 19 and Dec. 22, a hacker downloaded student and teacher data from thousands of servers hosted by PowerSchool, with one of those servers hosting Hanover Schools' data.
According to PowerSchool, the system became aware of the cybersecurity incident on Dec. 28, which involved the unauthorized exportation of personal information from certain PowerSchool Student Information System environments through its customer support portal, PowerSource.
According to Hanover Schools, PowerSchool shared on Jan. 8 that the data was destroyed after it paid a fee to the hacker.
On Jan. 9, the school district said it was aware that the following data was breached from Hanover Schools:
- Student name
- Student address
- Parent contact information
- Teacher name
- Schedule
"While PowerSchool’s legal team is confident that the data was destroyed upon payment, additional investigations are underway to help ensure that it was, in fact, destroyed," said Hanover Schools in its Jan. 9 statement. "Please note that PowerSchool is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding this breach."
While PowerSchool said Social Security Numbers may have been included in the security breach, Hanover Schools provided an update on Tuesday, Jan. 14, saying that Social Security Numbers for students and staff are not stored in PowerSchool and were not compromised in this data breach.
The school district also added that student and staff PowerSchool login credentials were not exposed.
Hanover Schools went on to say that its network was not breached and no outside access was gained to the district's network, rather the PowerSchool global network system, which hosts data from thousands of school divisions, was breached.
"We have also been assured by PowerSchool that there was nothing [Hanover Schools] could have done to avoid the cybersecurity data breach as it occurred on systems that are owned and operated by PowerSchool," the school district said in its Jan. 14 update.
To address questions regarding the breach, Hanover Schools shared a dedicated webpage for families and staff that was created by PowerSchool with more information.
