SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KGTV) — California’s second-largest school district says sensitive information from current and former employees, including Social Security numbers and bank account information, was stolen in a cybersecurity incident last fall.
In a notice posted on its website, the San Diego Unified School District said in late April, it determined driver’s licenses, bank numbers, health plan and other medical information was in files taken last October.
“We recommend that individuals whose information may have been involved remain vigilant and review credit reports and financial account statements for any unauthorized activity,” says a post on the district’s website sent by Maureen Magee, the district’s communications director.
ABC 10News asked Magee if the district paid a ransom, how many employees were impacted by the breach, and if it was working with law enforcement, but we didn’t receive a response to our questions.
San Diego cybersecurity expert Sai Huda isn’t surprised San Diego Unified got hit by hackers.
“We found, for example, unfortunately, in San Diego County, eight out of 10 K-12 schools have vulnerabilities on their websites or Internet-facing applications.”
Huda is the CEO of CyberCatch, a local business that uses AI to help organizations protect themselves from online criminals.
He said San Diego is an attractive city for hackers abroad in countries like Russia and Iran.
“There’s a lot of families that are military families, so by stealing the data and credentials about the parents who, for example, maybe reusing the same password at an employer or in the military, that could be really valuable to a group that they can sell it to a foreign government.”
In February, the Sweetwater Union High School District experienced what it called a ‘cyber incident’ that left students and staff locked out of systems for days.
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In April, the district denied a request for public records from ABC 10News that would’ve shed light on what happened. And it will not say if it paid a ransom.
Huda thinks we will see more schools hit by hackers in the years to come and encourages districts to plan.
“The attackers know that the schools are very valuable targets because they have a lot of data.”
