Breach, Data Security

Breach impacts about 10,000 employees in Maryland school system

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Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) in Maryland is notifying roughly 10,000 employees that their personal information – including Social Security numbers – was inadvertently included in a report that was shared internally via email, and also disseminated outside of the PGCPS email domain.

How many victims? About 10,000. 

What type of personal information? Social Security numbers, dates of birth and employee identification numbers.

What happened? The information was inadvertently included in a report that was shared internally via email and also disseminated outside of the PGCPS email domain.

What was the response? The PGCPS email accounts were suspended so the emailed reports could be removed. Steps are being taken to ensure a similar incident does not occur again. All impacted individuals are being notified, and offered a free year of credit monitoring services.

Details: PGCPS notified employees on Friday, stating in a letter that the incident was learned of a “few days ago.” The report was emailed to a group of principals. While suspending the PGCPS accounts to remove the emails, staff noticed that emails were also sent to the personal addresses of school staff members.

Source: washingtonpost.com, The Washington Post, “Security breach reveals personal data on Prince George's school employees,” Nov. 24, 2014.

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