BROCKVILLE – A cyber attack that crippled the internet services for the region’s largest school board has no time line for restoration.
As students at the Upper Canada District School Board’s 77 elementary and secondary schools returned to class after the Christmas Break, they found they had returned to classes without internet service.
A cyber-attack discovered January 5 shuttered all internet access to the schools, student and staff emails, and online learning platforms. Two weeks later, some email services are intermittently working. However there is no time line for a full restoration of services.
Media inquiries by The Leader were directed to a January 16 update on the UCDSB’s website.
“Our priority is on restoring service. However we cannot provide an exact timeline of how long this network disruption will last. There are several important steps that must be completed before we can fully restore our systems, including securing all UCDSB devices that access our network. Be assured, the process is ongoing but it will take some time,” the board said in its statement.
The UCDSB maintains that no information theft or breach has occurred. The board is one of thousands that use the PowerSchool software for school records and human resources records. That software has been the subject of a significant data breach that has affected school boards in the Greater Toronto Area, boards in six different provinces and dozens of states in the United States.
“The UCDSB uses this software, however PowerSchool has confirmed that our school board is not impacted. We have also taken steps to confirm that we were not affected,” the board said.
As of January 20, some students had limited access to email to read, but not send. Access to cloud-based tools like Microsoft Office was unavailable, and access to e-Learning platforms was also down. With the semester ending shortly, many of the students talked to by The Leader said they were concerned with finishing projects needed for their courses. Some of the e-Learning students who took classes at other school boards received temporary email accounts from those outside boards to use.
Last week, many of the computers in schools were reset and updated as part of the recovery effort, yet internet access is still down.
The board continues to ask for parents to call in school absenses as its MyFamilyRoom platform remains unaccessible due to the cyber attack.
The UCDSB has not clarified what form of cyber attack occurred, where it originated from, or if there is any damage from the attack. The board also has not updated on what efforts were made before the attack to improve cyber security.
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