Hanover County Public Schools has issued a warning following a data breach involving its student information system vendor, PowerSchool. On January 9, the school district announced that between December 19 and 22, unauthorized access to servers hosted by PowerSchool led to the exposure of sensitive student data, including names, addresses, contact info, teacher details, schedules, and even Social Security Numbers. PowerSchool confirmed on December 28 that a hacker attempted to export personal information through its support portal. The district stated that PowerSchool paid the hacker for destroyed data but noted investigations are ongoing to confirm this. On January 14, Hanover Schools clarified that Social Security Numbers were not stored in PowerSchool and weren’t affected in the breach. They also confirmed that login credentials for students and staff remained secure. The school network wasn’t breached, but a dedicated webpage was created by PowerSchool for families and staff to provide updates.
Source: https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/hanover-county/hanover-county-public-schools-student-staff-information-breached-in-global-data-breach