The PowerSchool Data Breach & Incident Response for K-12 Schools

PowerSchool, a major provider of student information system (SIS) software used by thousands of schools across the United States and Canada, discovered a cyber incident that exposed the personal data of likely millions of students and teachers. 

The PowerSchool data breach highlights the growing risk of cloud-based education data and how critical it is to obtain fast, comprehensive insights when PII or other personal data is compromised.

What is the PowerSchool data breach?

On December 28, 2024, PowerSchool became aware of a cyber incident. Hackers used stolen credentials to access and exfiltrate the personal data of likely millions of students and teachers across the United States and Canada.

In FAQs on its SIS Incident page, PowerSchool shared that the following types of personal information were compromised, varying by individual: 

• Social security number (SSN)
• Social insurance number (SIN)
• Medical alert information
• Contact information
• Date of birth
• Other related information

PowerSchool indicated that financial information was not included in the breach. Current and former students as well as teachers are reportedly affected.

What types of data do K-12 schools process?

The types of PII and other student data processed by primary and secondary (K-12) schools varies. In their SIS, most schools store data such as:

• Birthdates
• Contact information
• Government- and school-issued identification numbers
• Education-specific data like grades, attendance, disciplinary records, and test scores

Schools may also process other personal information, like allergies and medical conditions, religious affiliation, and even biometric data.

What regulations are in place to protect students’ data?

The regulations for safeguarding student data and notifying when it is compromised depend on federal and state/provincial jurisdiction. Each country and many states/provinces have unique requirements when it comes to handling and safeguarding students’ and teachers’ PII.

“A key challenge is that you are looking for different data types and have different requirements in different jurisdictions,” said Anthony Hess, CEO at Asceris. “Some jurisdictions are also less likely to allow for offshore review or transfer of data.”

In the United States, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. While FERPA does prohibit the disclosure of students’ PII, it does not require notification in the event of a data breach — though educational institutions must document each disclosure, and families can file complaints with the Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO). 

Canada does not have federal legislation specifically for education data. However, this type of incident is covered by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) because the breached PII is sensitive enough that it could cause a “real risk of significant harm (RROSH)” to those affected. Under PIPEDA, organizations must issue notifications “as soon as feasible,” regardless of how many people were affected.

Each of the 50 U.S. states has its own data breach notification law with varying breach definitions and notification requirements. Alberta and Quebec also have separate province-level data breach regulations.

Has PowerSchool sent data breach notifications?

In the January 24, 2025 update on its SIS Incident page (nearly one month after its discovery of the incident), PowerSchool shared that the review process was still ongoing. 

As PowerSchool is a third party software provider and customers across the U.S. and Canada were impacted, there are multiple groups of people awaiting more information about this data breach: the educational institutions that use the software, the students and teachers who were affected, and the various applicable regulatory bodies.

As of February 7, 2025, PowerSchool had notified its affected customers and posted a broad notification for both the United States and Canada. It committed to submitting regulatory notifications and breach notification letters to affected students and educators on behalf of its customers once review is complete. Because PII types reportedly vary by individual, PowerSchool also promised to include a description of the compromised data in breach notification letters, and will provide two years of identity protection and credit monitoring services to all affected students and educators.

This commitment goes beyond what is required by many jurisdictions and may help mitigate PowerSchool’s reputational harm, another risk associated with these incidents.

The Growing Cyber Risk for K-12 Schools

According to K12 Security Information eXchange (K12 SIX), there were reportedly 1,619 cyber incidents across schools and districts in the U.S. from 2016-2022. 

Educational institutions are prime targets for cyber attacks because:

• They process valuable identifiable information, like government ID numbers.
• The resources they can dedicate to cybersecurity are often limited.
• This information is for children, who are less likely than adults to have credit monitoring set up — stolen identities can go years without being discovered.

“Schools hold a lot of interesting and valuable data in large volumes, but often don’t have the financial resources to focus on securing it,” said Anthony. “These can also be highly visible incidents.”

Increasingly, educational institutions are concerned about their cybersecurity posture as they recognize their huge responsibility of safeguarding student and educator data in today’s digital world. And even with stringent security standards in place, incidents like the PowerSchool data breach, caused by compromised credentials, are difficult to avoid completely.

Given this ongoing challenge, it’s no surprise that Data Breach Response is listed on the Gartner® Hype Cycle™ for K-12 Education, 2024 (July 2024). We’re proud that Canopy is highlighted as the only sample vendor that’s purpose-built for incident response data mining specifically within this broad service area.

Canopy Delivers the Fastest Insights for K-12 Data Breaches 

When incidents like the PowerSchool data breach happen, the review speed has huge implications for regulatory compliance, reputational damage, and mitigating harm for affected individuals. Schools should have access to the industry’s best data mining providers using the most advanced tools available. 

Canopy’s patented Data Breach Response software is the world’s leading data mining technology. It enables incident response (IR) teams to locate PII/PHI, connect it to people, and generate a consolidated list of affected individuals.

Our advanced PII detection algorithms enable data mining teams to get an accurate understanding of what’s in compromised education data exponentially faster than with other tools. Impact assessment reports containing the types and amounts of detected PII in a data set are often available within one day. Jurisdiction-specific processing templates and a wide range of detected elements make Canopy the perfect solution for assessing incidents like the PowerSchool data breach.

“One of the biggest unknowns in most breaches is exposure – how many individuals were impacted — which affects regulatory and cost implications. It's extremely difficult to know early on,” said Brandon Hollinder, Vice President at Epiq. “With Canopy, we get initial insights almost immediately from the Impact Assessment Report. Then its powerful PII identification and AI review features help us thoroughly understand the data set 20-60% faster than other tools. Having more accurate metrics sooner is a huge benefit for our clients, and Canopy makes it possible.”

In addition to reducing the review time by hundreds or thousands of hours through better PII identification, Canopy further streamlines workflows where human review is required. And our purpose-built platform automates the bulk of consolidation, getting IR teams the notification list fast with as much detail about each person as they need.

“Speed is key. We can usually get insights about the number of documents that contain potentially personal information within a day,” said Anthony. “Canopy increases the effectiveness and speed of our review, and its deduplication produces a more concise entity list. And because Canopy has instances across the globe, we can meet regulatory requirements for data to remain in-jurisdiction.”

All of this adds up to faster insights, quicker notifications, and tons of cost savings too. 

Are you a service provider ready for Data Mining Done Right? Request a demo to see what Canopy can do.