Hackers target student information in the Magic Valley

WENDELL, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — Hackers target everything from hospitals to city governments attempting to find sensitive information.

They also target schools, and schools in the Magic Valley were hit. Just a few weeks ago PowerSchool, a commonly used student information service, faced a cyberattack that resulted in information being seized by hackers.

IT Director for the Wendell School District, Martin Shirley, said hackers look for personal information for identity theft purposes, and even schools can have sensitive data.

“In some of the queries that I’ve had from the insurance companies, other places, they’ve asked us if our driver’s license numbers were compromised, if social security numbers were compromised,” Shirley said.

There’s also financial gain as schools are able to make school payments through PowerSchool, which puts credit card information at risk. Shirley said that is something their district has not done, nor have they stored any social security numbers within their PowerSchool server.

“That’s where we store the grades, all the student information is stored in there. Information on the staff is also stored in the server,” Shirley said.

Shirley adds it could also include hiring dates and immunization records. PowerSchool paid a ransom to the hackers, and in exchange the information they obtained was destroyed. However, the district is still waiting to hear what information of theirs was accessed by the hackers. The Wendell School District has its own cybersecurity measures to keep its data safe such as a firewall to keep hackers out. However, backing up files is equally important.

“We use a service called VEEN, which is a backup service that allows us to pick files from different computers and servers and back those up,” Shirley said.

Shirley added that the school district also trains their staff on how to spot phishing scams and practice good password protection so they can keep hackers from accessing any sensitive information. The district will use this event to look for any vulnerabilities in its own network.

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