Suburban schools using PowerSchool software affected by data breach

A number of suburban schools using the California-based data service PowerSchool have been affected by a data breach discovered by the firm in late December and reported to clients this week.

Mundelein High School District 120 Superintendent Kevin Myers posted information to his community on the district’s website.

“While information from District 120 students and staff was accessed, PowerSchool informed us they are confident data collected during this breach has already been destroyed without evidence of being misused or shared,” Myers wrote. “The breach occurred on Dec. 28 and was reported to D120 on Jan. 7. We were one of many school districts impacted.”

Names, birth dates, email addresses and some limited medical information may have been accessed, Myers said.

If school districts chose to input Social Security information into PowerSchool, that data might have been compromised in the breach. However, District 120 officials said that didn’t happen there.

Nevertheless, Myers suggested being alert for phishing emails and to monitor accounts and credit reports for any unusual activity.

Palatine Township District 15 officials notified parents of the breach as well. The district is transitioning to PowerSchool next year and was largely unaffected by the breach, district officials reported.

“We have taken all appropriate steps to prevent the data involved from further unauthorized access or misuse,” according to a PowerSchool spokesperson. “PowerSchool is not experiencing, nor expects to experience, any operational disruption and continues to provide services as normal to our customers.”

According to a report by TechCrunch, PowerSchool is the largest provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in the United States, and that the types of data stolen varied by customer.

PowerSchool told TechCrunch it had worked with CyberSteward, a Canadian organization that offers cyber-extortion response services, to negotiate with the perpetrators responsible for the data breach.

It’s unclear how many suburban school districts use the platform. PowerSchool officials could not provide regional data.

Attempts to gather that information from the North Cook Intermediate Service Center & Regional Office of Education and the Illinois State Board of Education were not successful.