My on air interview with Eileen Buckley at WIVB- ABC:
The Buffalo Public School District is dealing with the fallout from the March 12 ransomware attack.
We’ve learned personal student, parent and teacher information has been breached.
Letters arrived Friday and over the weekend to school families and teachers indicating that private information could have been stolen in the cyber attack.
“It’s not really clear. They know for sure it wasn’t the social security number though, which means they do have clear indications of what was not taken,” noted Arun Vishwanath, cyber security expert, school parent.
Vishwanath says the district took too long to notify families.
“They could have right off — when this happened — told all the kids and all the parents — listen just lock the credits of all your children and yourself because there’s no cost for doing that,” Vishwanath said.
Parents and the leader of the Buffalo Teachers’ union are also upset that the letters came from an outside party, a company named Kroll, with no information directly from the city school district.
“Friday evening, we started getting phone calls from teachers — what’s this mail — what’s this all about,” recalled Phil Rumore, president, Buffalo Teachers Federation.
Vishwanath says the district needs to be more transparent about the exact data breach.