PowerSchool Incident
February 6, 2025
Dear Parents/Caregivers,
We are writing to provide a further update about the cybersecurity incident that PowerSchool, our student information system (SIS) provider, recently experienced.
In our previous update on January 30th, we mentioned that PowerSchool would be providing notice to students, parents/guardians, and educators whose information was involved and that the notice would include information about identity protection and/or credit monitoring services offered. PowerSchool has now advised us that it has initiated the process of notifying those individuals.
IMPORTANT: PowerSchool’s notification may indicate that your Social Insurance Number was exposed, but we wish to clarify that this is not the case. Rather, our Division stored alternate data in the Social Insurance Number field—specifically the 9-digit Manitoba Education and Training Number (MET), which is a unique student ID that the province creates for each student who enrolls in a Manitoba public school. As noted in our previous correspondence, we can advise that no parent/guardian, staff, or student Social Insurance Number (SIN), banking, or credit card information has been identified as stored in our SIS.
PowerSchool will be notifying individuals by email and we understand the email will be sent from ps-sis-incident@mail.csid.com. We understand these emails will be sent by PowerSchool in the coming weeks.
Whether or not you receive an email, you may also visit PowerSchool’s website to learn how to activate the identity protection and/or credit monitoring services. For those able to utilize credit monitoring services (individuals over 18), you will be prompted to validate before activating by entering your first name, last name, and date of birth. Anyone, including those under 18, can utilize the identity protection services. You may not be able to access the credit monitoring services immediately, as PowerSchool is still updating its list of eligible individuals. PowerSchool indicated that its updates should be completed by the end of February. PowerSchool has advised that you can call 833-918-7884 if you have any questions.
We continue to work diligently to request more details from PowerSchool. We also continue to investigate this incident ourselves, with assistance from experts. We may be in touch again with further updates.
There continue to be no operational impacts on The Hanover School Division as a result of this incident. PowerSchool has assured us that the incident has been contained.
In the Hanover School Division, we take cybersecurity and protecting information seriously. We will post updates about the PowerSchool cybersecurity incident on our website. Additionally, we have provided an FAQ at https://hsd.ca/cybersecurity-updates/ that provides some answers to questions you may have. If you have any additional questions, they can be directed to info@hsd.ca.
Thank you for your continued understanding and patience as we navigate this situation.
Joe Thiessen, Superintendent-CEO
Hanover School Division
in: Announcements