<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0O3vb3_1016NnLU00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0O3vb3_1016NnLU00" width="1200" height="600" >ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - A data breach in a widely used student information system has affected several Alaskan school districts. In December, PowerSchool — a cloud-based software company providing services for over 60 million students worldwide — announced it had been affected by an unauthorized cybersecurity breach. That breach included some sensitive data, including names, contact information, Social Security numbers, medical history, and other personal details. At least four Alaska districts have said their students and staff have been affected, including the Juneau School District, Lower Kuskokwim School District (LKSD), Nome Public Schools, and the Bering Strait School District (BSSD). Some of the leaked data traces back over 20 years. The BSSD said students enrolled as far back as 2003 may be affected. In Juneau, the compromised data dates back to 2008. “School districts have an incredible amount of data,” Randy Rose, vice president of Security Operations and Intelligence at the Center for Internet Security, explained. “When that data is breached, it has impacts far beyond what we think of as a typical data breach … the entire community, in many cases, can be impacted.”The PowerSchool breach can leave students and staff vulnerable to identity theft, Rose said, adding that it may also put their physical safety at risk. “Some of that information is things like where a student lives and what the economic status of that student is. And in many cases, even things like whether or not they’re enrolled in an after-school program or free lunches,” he explained. “That kind of data really exposes the most vulnerable populations to people who have otherwise nefarious purposes.”An influx of spam messages, Rose said may be an indicator that your data has been compromised. The leak could lead to long-term financial impacts for those affected, including lowered credit ratings. To protect themselves in the future, Rose recommends all impacted students and staff keep a close eye on, or even freeze their credit scores. “That’s not something we typically do, check their credit score for a kid in seventh grade,” he said. “But those are the kinds of things that can actually be impacted, and you may not discover it for 10 years.”PowerSchool is providing two years of free identity protection services to students and staff whose information was involved. In a statement released earlier this month, PowerSchool said the company is working to notify those who have been impacted and said that none of its other products have been compromised. Both Nome Public Schools and the LKSD said they have removed Social Security information from the PowerSchool database following the breach. The Juneau School District said it never stored social security numbers in the compromised database. See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com</div></body>

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - A data breach in a widely used student information system has affected several Alaskan school districts. In December, PowerSchool — a cloud-based software company providing services for over 60 million students worldwide — announced it had been affected by an unauthorized cybersecurity breach. That...

Data breach affects thousands of Alaskan students & school staff

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - A data breach in a widely used student information system has affected several Alaskan school districts. In December, PowerSchoo

Data breach affects thousands of Alaskan students & school staff

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