‘Cyber incident’ affects Edmonton-area school boards
Posted January 9, 2025 9:23 am.
Two Edmonton school boards have been affected by a data breach involving software to store student information.
Edmonton Catholic School Division (ECSD) and St. Albert Public Schools are among school boards across North America affected by a “cyber incident” targeting PowerSchool, a third-party application used to store school-based staff information.
“PowerSchool has assured us that the incident is contained and that they’ve strengthened their security measures to prevent future breaches,” ECSD wrote on its website. “PowerSchool’s operations remain unaffected, and service continues as usual.
“We want to assure you that no financial information was accessed or stored in PowerSchool.”
In a notice, St. Albert Public Schools said dozens of Alberta school divisions were affected.
Officials in Alberta, Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador say they are working with PowerSchool to determine the extent of the breach.
PowerSchool, a U.S.-based provider of cloud software, says in a statement it has taken “all appropriate steps” to prevent further unauthorized access or misuse of the affected data.
The company says the incident is “contained,” and it does not anticipate the data will be shared or made public.
Edmonton Catholic posted a letter online that it received from PowerSchool.
“Our investigation determined that an unauthorized party gained access to certain PowerSchool Student Information System customer data using a compromised credential, and we regret to inform you that your data was accessed,” the letter said.
The government of Newfoundland and Labrador also issued a notice about the data breach at PowerSchool, which it said is used in the provincial education system from kindergarten to Grade 12. It said “multiple government departments” are involved in determining the next steps.
PowerSchool said it is providing services to its customers as usual as it continues to investigate the data breach.
“We take our responsibility to protect student data privacy and act responsibly as data processors extremely seriously,” it said in its statement.
