After speaking with PowerSchool, they confirmed that the emails sent by Experian on Friday, February 14th, were legitimate.  Their investigation into the incident on December 28th continues.  Even though we were informed that none of our PowerSchool information was compromised initially, as they do more extensive investigating, they have determined that some of our students and staff were involved in the data breach. That said, they offer a 2-year complimentary enrollment in Experian IdentityWorks.  You can enroll in the program using the information you received in the email.  Please make sure when you are registering that the membership you are getting is the free one. Otherwise, you may be charged a monthly fee. 

As a precautionary measure, the District did remove all social security numbers from PowerSchool. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Amanda Brown at abrown@frsd.info or 814.685.3866.

We apologize for the number of posts regarding this incident. We have been in contact with PowerSchool and they have verified the email is legitimate and came from Experian. Experian is a company that helps you monitor an individual’s credit. We are unsure of why we were notified by PowerSchool that none of our information was compromised but Experian has insinuated otherwise. We are waiting for a response from PowerSchool. With it being a weekend and a holiday Monday, there may be a delay receiving further information. As soon as receive anything further, we will pass it along. As always, if you have any questions involving this incident, please contact Amanda Brown at abrown@frsd.info.

In regards to emails several parents and staff have received from PowerSchool, we have been ensured by PowerSchool that our data was NOT involved in their data breach. The email we received below soon after the breach confirms that our information was not involved in this incident. We believe PowerSchool is sending this email to all contacts as an extra precaution to ensure your data is secure. The email received is legitimate and you certainly have every right to ensure your protection by signing up for Experian services. If you choose to do so, please make sure you are signing up for the free service, otherwise there could be a monthly fee involved. As always, if you have any questions involving this incident, please contact Amanda Brown at abrown@frsd.info.

Dear Valued Customer,

As a main point of contact for your school district, we are reaching out to make you aware that on December 28, 2024 PowerSchool became aware of a potential cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to certain information through one of our community-focused customer support portals, PowerSource. Your organization’s Technical Contact was informed of this incident earlier today. Over the succeeding days, our investigation determined that an unauthorized party gained access to certain PowerSchool SIS customer data using a compromised credential.

However, our thorough forensic investigation has confirmed that information related to other PowerSchool products you have were not affected as a result of this incident. Please note there is no further action needed from you at this time relative to your non-PowerSchool SIS products, and we are simply notifying you to be as transparent as possible and because we value our partnership with you. We have already notified technical contacts responsible for PowerSchool SIS in your organization.

As soon as we learned of the incident, we immediately engaged our cybersecurity response protocols and mobilized a cross-functional response team, including senior leadership and third-party cybersecurity experts. We have also informed law enforcement.

We have also deactivated the compromised credential and restricted all access to the affected portal. Lastly, we have conducted a full password reset and further tightened password and access control for all PowerSource customer support portal accounts.

Importantly, the incident is contained, and we have no evidence of malware of continued unauthorized activity in the PowerSchool environment. PowerSchool is not experiencing, nor expects to experience any operational disruption and continues to provide services as normal to our customers.

We are addressing the situation in an organized and thorough manner, following all of our incident response protocols. PowerSchool is committed to providing affected customers with the resources and support they may need as we work through this together.

Again, although your product was not impacted, we wanted to assure you that we are addressing the situation in an organized and thorough manner following all of our incident response protocols. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your customer service manager. Thank you for your continued support and partnership.

Best,

Hardeep Gulati

Chief Executive Officer

Paul Brook

Chief Customer Officer

cc: Mishka McCowan

Chief Information Security Officer

Recently our Student Information System, PowerSchool, was the victim of a cyber attack. We have been assured that none of our student’s information was compromised in this incident. We have also taken steps to ensure students information is secure and remains so.  If you have any questions, please contact the district.