Public schools’ data breach

The following announcement from Oconee public schools:

 

“We were notified earlier this week that PowerSchool, the vendor that the SC Department of Education contracts with to supply the student data system for all South Carolina school districts, suffered a data breach.  It is important to note that this breach was not caused by SCDOC employees or policy, but was the result of a compromised account at Power School that has affected school districts across the nation.  Mr. Price, our Chief Technology Officer, and his team in the SCDOC Technology Department have been on calls with SDE and with officials from Power School to stay abreast of the developments in the investigation.  They are continuing to investigate to learn what information in our system may have been compromised.  We do know that some potentially identifiable information was stored in the files accessed.  We do want to emphasize that it is our district policy and practice to NOT STORE Social Security numbers in PowerSchool.  We will continue to share information with you as we receive it from the SC Department of Education and from PowerSchool….”