45 Million Records Leaked in PowerSchool Data Breach

10 Jan 2025 · 2 min

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1:50

In a news segment, anchor Speaker A alerts parents to a massive data breach involving PowerSchool, the California-based provider of cloud‑based school‑district software. PowerSchool discovered the breach on December 28 and reports that sensitive student information—including names, Social Security numbers, and medical data—may have been stolen, potentially affecting millions of students nationwide, with at least 18,000 records linked to Massachusetts districts. Boston 25 confirms four Massachusetts districts—Westford, Needham, Canton, and Stoughton—are impacted, though more may be involved. Cybersecurity expert Speaker B explains the long‑term danger of child identity theft, noting victims often remain unaware until adulthood, which can hinder credit, college admission, employment, and housing. The expert advises parents to freeze their child's credit and obtain free weekly credit reports. PowerSchool issues a statement asserting the incident is contained, that they have taken steps to prevent further unauthorized access, and do not expect the data to be publicly shared. The segment concludes with practical instructions: contact the three major credit bureaus (TransUnion, Experian, Equifax) to freeze credit and use annualcreditreport.com for free weekly reports.

Chapters

We have an alert for parents tonight. Check for messages from your children's school district. 18,000 nationwide may be part of a massive data breach impacting millions of students, including many right here in Massachusetts. The districts all partner with California-based PowerSchool. It provides cloud-based software to districts nationwide. PowerSchool says it learned of the data breach on December 28th. Sensitive data including names, Social Security numbers, and medical information may have been stolen. I spoke with a cybersecurity expert about the risk. He says freezing your child's credit would make any stolen information useless to a thief.
The problem with child identity theft is that you or the child may not know that their identity is compromised until they're 18 years old, when they begin to apply for lines of credit, when they apply for college. So it's important to do something about it now because in the long run, that can affect their ability to get credit cards, get into college, get jobs, uh, get an apartment, and so on.
In a statement, PowerSchool says, "We have taken all appropriate steps to prevent the data involved from further unauthorized access or misuse," adding, "The incident is contained and we do not anticipate the data being shared or made public." Boston 25 confirms at least 4 districts are impacted: Westford, Needham, Canton, and Stoughton, but there are others.
When people hear that their information or their child's information is compromised, they kind of freak out a little bit, understandably. The key is don't worry about any of this stuff, but definitely do something about it.
Now, to freeze your credit or your child's credit, contact each of the 3 credit reporting agencies. They are TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. You can also now get free weekly credit reports from all 3 of them. There's only one site to do that, though. It is annualcreditreport.com.