PowerSchool begins notifying victims of NC school data breach

PowerSchool has begun notifying North Carolina teachers and students if their data was exposed in the December 2024 hack of the massive school data communication system.

The California-based company was hit with a cybersecurity breach last month when a contractor's account was compromised, allowing unauthorized people to access datasets.

The company has since changed passwords and instituted other security measures.

The Wake County Public School System sent a message to families and others Friday afternoon telling them the notifications had begun.

It's so far unclear how many North Carolina teachers and students will end up receiving a notice, and the extent of the data accessed is also unclear.

WRAL News has reached out to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and PowerSchool for more information.

Last week, DPI told WRAL News that the hack exposed about 312,000 current and former public school teacher Social Security numbers but only 910 students' Social Security numbers.

Earlier this month, the department said all of the state's public schools that have ever used PowerSchool were affected to some degree.

The company plans to offer two years of free credit monitoring via Experian to individuals’ whose personal data was exposed. That includes people whose Social Security numbers were exposed but also those who only had other personal data exposed.

PowerSchool has said the hack was isolated to two tables that mostly contain personal information, such as contact, limited medical and limited grade information. North Carolina officials have said they don’t believe medical information was compromised in the state.

PowerSchool provides the statewide student information system to North Carolina and thousands of schools globally. It hosts data on about 60 million students.

It contains data on teachers, as well.

The state will shift to Infinite Campus for the service July 1, a decision made in November 2023 — well before the hack — in response to state legislative requirements to modernize the system.