January 14, 2025 Update:
Dear Families, Faculty, and Staff,
We are writing to follow up on the message we shared with you last week regarding the PowerSchool data breach.
As we shared last week, PowerSchool, our student information system vendor, experienced a cybersecurity data breach that impacted school divisions across the U.S and globally, including Hanover County Public Schools. While the PowerSchool internal investigation and full accounting of the breach continues, we have been made aware that some HCPS student and staff data was breached.
Please know that
Social Security numbers (SSN) for students and staff are not stored in PowerSchool and our school community’s SSNs were not compromised as part of this data breach. In addition, student and staff PowerSchool login credentials (login ID and password) were not exposed.
PowerSchool has informed us that the data was destroyed and additional investigations are underway to help ensure that it was, in fact, destroyed. We have also been assured by PowerSchool that there was nothing HCPS could have done to avoid the cybersecurity data breach as it occurred on systems that are owned and operated by PowerSchool.
Please know that
the HCPS network was not breached, and no outside access was gained to the HCPS network. Rather, the PowerSchool global network system, which exists in the cloud and hosts data from thousands of school divisions, including HCPS student and staff data, was breached.
We recognize that you may have questions regarding the breach. Accordingly,
we want to share with you a dedicated webpage for families and staff that PowerSchool has created with more information, including responses to frequently asked questions, regarding the breach.
Again, we echo your concern and are working with PowerSchool to ensure they take all necessary steps to prevent such occurrences in the future.
Thank you.
Hanover County Public Schools
Original January 9, 2025 Message:
Dear Families, Faculty, and Staff,
We are writing to make you aware of a data breach involving PowerSchool, our student information system vendor.
PowerSchool recently announced that the company experienced a data breach impacting school divisions across the country. This breach involved unauthorized access to certain information stored in their system.
Specifically, between December 19 and December 22, a hacker downloaded student and teacher data from thousands of servers hosted by PowerSchool. One of those servers hosts Hanover County Public Schools data. PowerSchool shared yesterday that the breach was discovered on December 28 and that the data was destroyed upon PowerSchool paying a fee to the hacker. While PowerSchool’s legal team is confident that the data was destroyed upon payment, additional investigations are underway to help ensure that it was, in fact, destroyed. Please note that PowerSchool is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding this breach.
While the investigation and full accounting of the breach continue, we know at this point that the following HCPS data was breached:
- Student Name
- Student Address
- Parent Contact Information
- Teacher Name
- Schedule
Again,
PowerSchool is confident that this data was destroyed, but we wanted to share it with you as we recognize the troubling nature of this breach.
Please know that the safety and security of our school community and your personal information is of the utmost importance to us, and we are deeply concerned about this situation. We are working closely with PowerSchool to better understand the scope of this incident and to ensure they take all necessary steps to prevent such occurrences in the future. Should any further relevant or specific information be shared with us about this data breach, we will be sure to share it with you.
Thank you.
Hanover County Public Schools