PowerSchool data breach: Thousands in Mass. affected, company says

The education software giant Powerschool has started notifying individuals who were impacted by their cyber attack.

The company, whose software is used by more than 18,000 schools to support over 60 million students across North America, confirmed the breach in early January.

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Earlier this year, NBC10 Boston reported on some of the school districts affected by the data breach, including Wellesley, Needham and Hopkinton school districts.

While the company has not provided an exact number of affected individuals, they have started to file incident reports with several state attorneys general. In Massachusetts, companies are legally required to report data breaches affecting residents’ private data.

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A data breach is impacting school districts across the country, including several here in Massachusetts, and this could mean names, addresses, medical records and even social security numbers were compromised.

And according to Massachusetts’ latest data breach notification report, on Jan. 28, Powerschool reported that 18,476 residents were impacted – with both Social Security numbers and medical records being breached.

“I definitely think that there's more to come,” said Jack Danahy, vice president of strategy and innovation at NuHarbor Security. “While the Social Security number is sort of the primary identifier we all use and is super important and useful for identity theft, it's not the most valuable component of things that can be found in student records, which can oftentimes include things like medical information.”

According to Powerschool’s notice of data breach, the company said the type of information exposed varies by district.

Danahy recommends freezing your kids' credit and staying on top of any unusual mail that arrives at home.

“Be aware of any information that comes back from health care insurance, health care providers for services that you're not expecting to see. Sometimes people think it's junk mail – maybe they won't take a look at it, but be aware that if there's any kind of health care charge fraud going on, that can come through traditional mechanisms like the mailbox,” Danahy said.

With the PowerSchool data breach impacting students and their families, cybersecurity experts say you should take steps to protect your child's information.

Powerschool said the incident has since been contained. Anyone who believes they may have been impacted can enroll in free credit monitoring and identity protection services.

To freeze your child’s credit, make sure to file a report with all three major credit agencies. For more information, NBC10 Boston has a guide on how to send a report.