ALABAMA ( WHNT ) — State officials announced Wednesday that the Alabama State Department of Education suffered a data breach in December.
In a memo to superintendents across the state , State Superintendent Eric Mackey said the state was told by PowerSchool, a cloud-based education software, that it had identified unauthorized access to certain customer information through its portal.
The memo states names, addresses, email addresses and some medical and grade information for students may have been impacted. However, social security numbers are not believed to be affected because the ALSDE doesn’t collect that information as part of the student information system.
Mackey said this breach was not targeted at the ALSDE or any Alabama school system but was directed at PowerSchool nationally.
PowerSchool assured the State Department of Education that the situation is contained and that the company has ramped up its security measures and deactivated compromised credentials. Additionally, PowerSchool says it will offer credit monitoring and identity protection services to those whose data was compromised.