NC public schools have been hit with a major data breach of teachers' and students’ personal information. A hacker attacked the PowerSchool information system that schools use to track student enrollment, grades and attendance.
PowerSchool is the largest provider of cloud-based education software for K-12 schools in the U-S, according to its website. The attack occurred December 28th.
The company notified affected customers, including the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, yesterday afternoon [Tuesday].
Vanessa Wrenn is the Department's Chief Information Officer. She said PowerSchool says the compromised data has been secured and deleted.
“I want to stress this one point: no actions by our schools or no actions by DPI could have prevented this incident from happening," she added, "As a matter of fact, this is a global incident.”
Wrenn said the Department is still analyzing the extent of the impact to North Carolina schools.