We want to inform our HCDSB community about a recent cyber incident involving the PowerSchool Student Information System (SIS), the application used by many school boards, including HCDSB, to store a range of student information and a limited amount of school-based staff information.
On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, PowerSchool notified school boards in Ontario and across North America, that they had experienced a data breach between December 22 and December 28, 2024.
Upon receiving this notification, our cybersecurity team promptly activated our response plan. We took immediate steps to ensure the security and integrity of our systems, and all essential systems are working properly.
PowerSchool has confirmed that HCDSB is one of the school boards affected by this incident, and some of our data may have been accessed, including information such as student names and parent contact information. They have assured us that the incident has been contained and that the accessed data has been deleted. There is no evidence of further unauthorized activity.
It is important to note that this cyber incident did not affect other PowerSchool technology products such as SchoolMessenger or SmartFind.
We are actively working with PowerSchool and conducting a thorough investigation to assess the extent of the breach and the specific information that may have been accessed. Additionally, we have notified the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) of this incident.
The privacy and security of our students, staff, and families are our top priorities. We are committed to providing updates as new information becomes available. Updates will be shared on this page to ensure transparency and to keep our community informed.
If you have any questions related to this incident, please email us at PowerSchoolincident@hcdsb.org.
We appreciate your understanding and patience as we address this matter.