A data breach at Dallas ISD has comprised the personal information of students and staff.
PowerSchool services numerous school districts in North Texas; however, the breach impacted only Dallas ISD in the region. Denton ISD, Frisco ISD, and Richardson ISD were not affected.
In a letter Dallas ISD sent to parents and obtained by WFAA, PowerSchool claims to have rapidly begun addressing the situation to protect sensitive data. The letter said the data was secured before any was copied or distributed.
“As soon as we learned of the incident, we immediately engaged our cybersecurity response protocols and mobilized a cross-functional response team, including senior leadership and third-party cybersecurity experts,” read a statement from PowerSchool.
While the company will work with federal officials to identify the individual behind the breach, PowerSchool says there was no evidence of any subsequent unauthorized activity.
“PowerSchool is not experiencing, nor does it expect to experience, any operational disruption and continues to provide services as normal to our customers. We have no evidence that other PowerSchool products were affected as a result of this incident or that there is any malware or continued unauthorized activity in the PowerSchool environment,” the company stated.
“The data that was compromised was significant, and besides just names, it included personal information… Power School is now on the front end and fixing their security issues that allowed this to happen in the first place,” said Martin Yarborough of Martin Yarborough and Associates Principal Consultant, who assists schools with cybersecurity, per WFAA.
Dallas ISD says PowerSchool will provide credit monitoring services to impacted adults. The company will also reportedly offer identity protection services to impacted minors. Dallas ISD says no passwords were accessed during the incident.
This is not the first time Dallas ISD data has been compromised. In 2021, The Dallas Express reported that a massive data breach impacted some students’ information, including names, addresses, grades, Social Security numbers, custody status, and medical conditions. At the time, the district similarly arranged for affected individuals to obtain free credit monitoring and identity protection.