SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) - The San Diego Unified School District alerted parents and staff of a breach involving the personal data of students and staff.
The breach is believed to date back to January 2018 and could impact as many as 500,000 students who were enrolled in the district between the 2008-09 and 2018-19 school years.
The district has reason to believe some employee and student personal data may have been compromised through the access or use by an unauthorized individual. Part of a "phishing" email effort, unauthorized access resulted in the potential viewing or theft of the personal data of some students and staff members.
Roughly 50 staff members whose accounts were compromised had the security on their accounts reset immediately upon discovery. Families of students whose data may have been accessed have been contacted by the district.
"Data security has become an increasing concern for public agencies, corporations and private citizens nationwide," said Toren Allen executive director of San Diego Unified's Integrated Technology Department. "We are constantly reviewing our practices and systems in an effort to find efficiencies and to identify potential vulnerabilities."
San Diego Unified say they have taken the necessary steps to eliminate the threat to personal data and have implemented improvements to prevent such unauthorized access from reoccurring.
Read the entire letter here.
For more information, families and employees have been directed to visit www.sandiegounified.org/datasafety.
