SALT LAKE CITY — Iron County and Salt Lake County school officials confirm having been affected by the PowerSchool security breach and are worried about what this means for future security.
PowerSchool, a popular provider for school-based software, had school information accessed during a nationwide cybersecurity breach. The breach compromised both teacher and student personal information such as names, email, addresses and even titles.
For Iron County School District Communications Director Shauna Lund, several of their schools were impacted.
"One thing we’ve emphasized with them and that we want to emphasize with everyone is that we do not keep our social security numbers in our power schools," said Lund. “I think any kind of delay is sort of frustrating for anybody so we’re just hoping they can get us information as quickly as possible."
“It’s unfortunate that we’re seeing more of this in this day and age," she said.
Salt Lake City School District Executive Director of Communications Yándary Chatwin confirms much of the same.
“Our district IT team has made sure that that breach has been closed, so our systems are now secure, we’re continuing to access that system and use it but we’re doing so safely," said Chatwin.
It’s not uncommon to use an outside source like Power School to store information in big school districts- but experts like University of Utah Associate Professor Sameer Patil say - it’s important to minimize the amount of information you put into it.
“In the modern era…anything that is online…is vulnerable to some degree," said Patil. "Which essentially means that, collect only that data which is absolutely necessary”
For now - all the schools effected can do - is wait.
“We’re all trying to figure this out together and to reassure our families that we’re doing our part to keep your information safe so we’ll continue to pass along that information as we receive it from the vendor," said Chatwin.
