Over winter break, PowerSchool was breached, leaking information of more than 60 million students and teachers globally.
The breach, which happened from Dec. 19-28, affected around 60,000 users, most of whom are school districts.
PowerSchool confirmed that information that was leaked by the hackers includes students’ names, addresses, account information, personal information such as if the student is on the free lunch program, account fees and locker numbers.
However, some districts might have had data stolen such as Social Security numbers, medical records and students’ grades.
At EHS, many students were unaware of the attacks, with only 43 of 188 responders said they knew before being asked.
One student worried about the leak is freshman Calla Pilkington.
While Pilkington is currently enrolled in honors classes, her main worries aren’t on her grades being leaked, but more on other information.
“I value information like my age name and address but none of them are my top priority,” Pilkington said, “I only really care about my Social Security and banking info. The hackers can do anything horrible with a lot of the info found on PowerSchool.”
According to writer Lawrence Abrams on Bleeping Computer, PowerSchool first reported the breach on Jan. 7 listing the cause as hackers entering the system through the student information system (SIS).
The incident caused a breach that gained access to the portal using compromised credentials and stole data using an “export data manager” customer support tool.
In the info given to Bleeping Computer, PowerSchool stressed that the hack did not affect all customers and users.
Sophomore Owen Zuercher sees the breach as a small look into the future of online security.
“(The breach) was a good demonstration of the danger posed by the increasingly online world.” Zuercher said. “The reliance on technology presents a potential security risk that needs to be factored into any considerations of moving forward into the future.”
Zuercher, another student who takes multiple honors classes, like Pilkington, doesn’t care that his information might have potentially been leaked but does care about other information being leaked.
“I don’t think it’s a huge deal if my grades get leaked somehow, but PowerSchool stores a lot of important information from the school like my address.” Zuercher said.
With thousand of users having their information stolen, what does this mean for the future of PowerSchool in district 7?
Since PowerSchool is a third-party software and not directly affiliated with the Edwardsville school district, the hack could be seen as a violation of contract, potentially leading to another switch in grade showing websites only two school years after District 7’s switch from the former service “TigerView”.