Parents, employees to be contacted about data breach
Staff writer
Parents and employees whose information may have been stolen in a cyberattack on a system Marion schools use soon will be notified whether their data was involved.
PowerSchool, a software company used by the district, was hacked Dec. 2. The company didn’t notice it until Dec. 28. Marion schools were notified Jan. 8.
PowerSchool owner Bain Capital paid ransom to the hackers, who said they then deleted all stolen data.
PowerSchool has hired credit reporting agency Experian to provide two years of identity protection and credit monitoring for students and staff whose information was involved in the cyberattack, Superintendent Justin Wasmuth said.
“PowerSchool has worked with Experian to set up a toll-free call center to answer questions associated with the incident,” Wasmuth said.
He said PowerSchool was not aware of any identity theft attributable to the data breach.
The district uses PowerSchool to keep records on student grades, demographics, medical histories, and similar information. It also uses PowerSchool to store data on teachers.
Marion was the only district in the county that used PowerSchool. Marion schools pay $7,514.13 a year for PowerSchool.