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BRIEF: Minnesota School District Addresses Cybersecurity Breach

Last week, the Duluth School District received a report of an unauthorized attempt to sign into their school account. The IT department began investigating and identified 14 affected student accounts.

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(TNS) — The Duluth school district's technology department reached out to parents about a cybersecurity breach involving student accounts late Wednesday evening. Student accounts have all been disabled to prevent additional unauthorized logins.

The district first estimated accounts wouldn't be active again until Friday in a letter sent to parents Wednesday evening, but an update Thursday said accounts are expected to be active by noon.

The Duluth Public Schools' technology department said in an update on Facebook that elementary and high school students will be able to access their accounts using their existing passwords. Middle school students will receive information from their school as to how to log in to their account.

On Wednesday, the district received a report from a student of an unauthorized attempt to sign into their school account. The technology department staff began investigating and over the course of the afternoon identified 14 student accounts being accessed by outside IP accounts, the Facebook post said. To prevent any additional unauthorized logins, all student accounts were disabled and staff began working to address the breach.

"We have not seen any suspicious activity from the compromised student accounts but we will continue to monitor and investigate. Thank you for your patience and for your support," the post read.

Friday, June 5 is the last day of school for the district. 

©2020 the Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.