WEYBURN - The South East Cornerstone Public School Division has released an update on a hacking incident that occurred earlier this month.
In a letter sent to parents Friday afternoon, director of education Keith Keating said they are continuing to investigate the recent cybersecurity incident, but the division is pleased to report that, in collaboration with third-party cybersecurity experts, the division has achieved containment of the incident.
They have alleviated the threat of unauthorized access to the network to what the division called a high degree of confidence, and can begin to roll back some of the measures which have reduced the functionality of many of their systems in schools and administrative offices.
“We will be doing so in a staged and intentional manner to ensure security is not compromised as a result,” said Keating.
The division hopes to have most, if not all systems restored to their pre-incident functionality by the time staff and students return from the winter break on Feb. 27.
“We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding as well as that of our students and the efforts of our staff to work around the measures required to protect our network and data following discovery of this incident. We will continue working with our experts to ensure those remain secure as we return to normal operating capacity,” Keating wrote.
The investigation into the impact of this incident on data is ongoing and will take some time to complete. Keating said the division appreciates their patience in that regard.
“To the extent that any student data is determined to have been impacted, we will notify all affected individuals directly,” he wrote.
Keating said the division will continue to provide updates as it advances in its recovery efforts and learns more about the extent of this incident.
