Waterloo school board says some student info accessed by hackers during July cyberattack

On Thursday, the Waterloo Region District School Board announced that some information from the student grade database was compromised during the cyberattack it discovered in July.

The board says the data involved included some students who were enrolled in the area between the years 2006 and 2013.

The WRDSB also said that social insurance numbers, addresses and financial information were not accessed during the hack as they are not in this database.

“We understand that students, former students, parents and caregivers are concerned about their personal information and that of their loved ones. We also know the time this process has taken has added to the stress,” board spokesperson Eusis Dougan-McKenzie stated.

“In August, when we learned that student information was involved, we shared that fact publicly. Unfortunately, at that time we did not know precisely which students or what information was involved.”

She says they have now completed most of the process of discovering what was accessed by the hackers.

The board says the cybersecurity experts they are working with have determined that the cyberattack did not breach the main student information system.

It says the attack was able to access info for about 70,000 people and the hackers may have accessed names, birthdates, gender, Ontario Education Number (OEN), whether a student had an individualized education plan, and historical information such as former schools, classrooms or teachers.

The WRDSB stated that the cybersecurity team told it the risk of identity theft from this portion of the attack is minimal but it is still offering credit monitoring for those who may have been affected.

Those who are interested in determining whether they were part of the attack can call TransUnion at 1-833-806-1882 and need to state that they are calling in relation to the Waterloo Regional District School Board credit monitoring program.