Students in 2 Bay Area Counties May Have Been Stolen by Hackers
Student data may be part of Polk County cyber hack
Ken Suarez reports
LAKELAND, Florida – An unknown number of children in Polk County have become the victims of cybercrime.
In December 2019, hackers broke into a company hired by the Polk County School District to help run a free meal program for some children.
The company, PCS Revenue Control Systems, just sent a letter to all parents of the children in Polk County, advising them of the problem. The school district reinforced the message with robocalls.
Kevin Sapp, who has a nine-year-old and a 12-year-old at school, is frustrated.
“It was in December 2019 that the company discovered there had been a breach. It’s been over a year, and it’s a little scary,” he told FOX 13. ” There are questions that need to be answered, and they don’t provide any answers. Feedback. “
It is not known how many children are affected.
PCS says cybercriminals may have obtained children’s names, student cards and dates of birth. PCS
also says that an unknown number of social security numbers may have been stolen.
This could be a big deal according to cybersecurity experts.
“Think about it,” explained Ron Frechette, CEO of Gold Sky Cyber Security Solutions. “That social security number was never used to get credit or do anything. So that’s new data. They can go out and try to get loans and do all kinds of things.”
In a written statement, PCS said, “There is no evidence of any attempt or actual misuse of personal information.”
However, the company is providing free security surveillance to families affected by the breach.
At the end of the Wednesday afternoon, the superintendent of Hernando County posted a video on social media saying families in his district are also affected by the PCS data breach.
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