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PowerSchool paid a hacker’s ransom, but now schools say they are being extorted


Schools in Toronto and North Carolina are reporting extortion attempts.

PowerSchool, which provides its K-12 software to thousands of schools to support 60 million students across North America, was hacked in December 2024 using a single stolen credential, which allowed a hacker broad access to PowerSchool’s stores of personally identifiable student and teacher data, including Social Security numbers and health data. Now, Toronto’s district school board, which serves around 240,000 students each year, said in a statement that earlier this week it had “received a communication from a threat actor demanding a ransom using data from the previously reported incident.” PowerSchool confirmed that it had paid the ransom at the time, saying the company “thought it was the best option for preventing the data from being made public.”

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