Powerschool Hack: School authorities are for months according to new ransom requirements

Some Canadian school authorities say that they were the goal of ransom attempts in relation to the massive data injury of Powerschool, which affected millions of current and former students across the country.

In letters to families on Wednesday, the Toronto District School Board, the Peel District School Board and the Calgary Board of Education, announced that they were contacted by a “threat player who demanded a ransom”.

According to each school authority, Powerschool does not report that new information has been accessed, and it is assumed that the data for Ransom was received in December 2024.

Powerschool, which is based in the USA that offers the violation of the student information, said on Wednesday that it was known that school authorities and districts had been contacted throughout North America.

“We do not believe that this is a new incident, since data patterns match the data previously stolen in December,” wrote the company. “We regret these developments sincerely-to us that our customers are threatened and newly victimized by bad actors.”

It is said that the matter of law enforcement in Canada and the USA has reported and worked with customers to support them.

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The law firm in Calgary is entering action for massive Powerschool data injury

After the violation of December, the company said that it paid a ransom because it believed that it would be “in the best interest of our customers”.

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The school authorities Peel, Toronto and Calgary said in their letters that the company had previously informed them that the data that had been accessed, had been deleted without online copies, but that was not the case.

“As with such an incident, there was a risk that the threat players would not comply with their obligation to delete the stolen data despite the assurances of Powerschool,” wrote the Calgary Board of Education in his letter, who had added that it had not paid or contributed.

The original violation occurred in December with boards in several provinces.

Global news contacted every school authority across the country at the beginning of this year to determine how many were affected. Of those who answered, at least 87 were affected.

Data from people who provided numbers showed that more than 2.77 million current and former students were affected. In addition, 35,951 employees, including the teachers, were affected, with a school authority of Nova Scotia pointed out that 3,500 parents were also accessed.

Data, including names of the people, contact information, date of birth, limited information on the medical alarm system and in some cases, according to Powerschool and several school authorities, on social security numbers were accessed. However, no sins were accessed in the school authorities Toronto, Peel and Calgary that alerted the parents this week.

According to various officials and public statements from school authorities, data injuries in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador were seen.

The officials of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nunavut, British Columbia and Yukon said their boards were not affected.

The data protection officers of Canada and Ontario said at the beginning of this year that they examined the violation.

In a statement on Global News, a spokesman for the Canadian data protection officer said that the company had made it aware of the incident and was still “actively committed” to ensure that Powerschool takes steps to react to the violation.

The commissioner's office stated that it could not provide any further details because his investigation has not yet been completed.

A class action was also started by Calgary Law Firm Cuming and Gillespie at the beginning of this year, although the lawyer Craig Gillespie Global news said that there was “no urgent call to act” at that time to get involved because it still has to be certified. Messages will go out for people when this occurs.

& Copy 2025 Global News, Department of Corus Entertainment Inc.