Canadian school boards among those affected by cyber incident involving third party [Video]

School boards in multiple provinces have been affected by a data breach involving software used by schools across North America to store student information.

Ontario’s Toronto, Peel and Durham district school boards issued similarly worded notices about a “cyber incident” targeting PowerSchool, a third-party application that’s also used to store some school-based staff information.

The notices say PowerSchool told school boards in Ontario and elsewhere on Tuesday that it had experienced a data breach between Dec. 22 and 28.

Officials in Ontario, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia say they are working with PowerSchool to determine the extent of the breach.

PowerSchool, a U.S.-based provider of cloud software, says in a statement it has taken “all appropriate steps” to prevent further unauthorized access or misuse of the affected data.

The company says the incident is “contained,” and it does not anticipate the data will be shared or made public.

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