Numerous school districts impacted by the sweeping cyberattack against major education technology provider PowerSchool disclosed having their students' highly sensitive information compromised as a result of the incident, which was noted to have affected more than a third of the firm's 18,000 clients and claimed to have compromised over 70 million students and faculty members, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
Massachusetts' Wakefield Public Schools announced that the PowerSchools hack not only exposed 1,384 current and former students' medical information but also special education plans and custody alerts, including restraining orders and legal details, belonging to 708 and 31 current and former pupils, respectively. Other school districts were also noted by Illinois school district assistant superintendent Adam Larsen to have had their students' mental health and special education information compromised.
[The school districts are] "pretty unhappy because they feel like as stewards of that data, that they have a responsibility to ensure that it is taken care of, and they never expected a threat vector like this," said Larsen, who also serves as a data consultant facilitating PowerSchool hack-impacted schools' data audits.
