Quintin Robertson, Director of Good Spirit School Division (GSSD) wrote to parents on March 4th regarding a cyber-incident the division experienced on February 27th.
GSSD mentioned that the incident affected various aspects of their operations. As of Wednesday, March 6th some GSSD staff did not have the ability to use their devices to teach in their classrooms.
Robertson mentioned, “[W]e understand the unease this may cause you and your families. First and foremost, I want to assure you that the safety and security of our students is our top priority. At this moment, we have no evidence to suggest that any personal student information has been compromised. Protecting the privacy of our students is paramount, and we are taking every possible measure to safeguard their information. It’s important to note that all student records are housed by the ministry within My School Sask (MSS) which is an externally hosted service not hosted within the compromised GSSD servers”.
Speaking about the issue, the GSSD director said, “We are actively working with both internal and external cybersecurity experts to assess and control the damage caused by this attack. Our team is diligently working to restore normal operations as quickly and safely as possible…As a result of this incident, our communication and internet systems have been impacted”.
“We have made significant headway in restoring operations. Most systems will be restored by the end of the week. Thanks to the work of our IT team and the support of our staff and students.”