Students, staff, and parents at schools operated by the Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) have been affected significantly by a cyber incident which made many technological aspects of learning and school administration impossible during the first week back in class following the Christmas break.
Local UCDSB schools include Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute (VCI), Pleasant Corners Public School, Laggan Public School, Glengarry District High School, and Maxville Public School.
On Sunday, January 5, the UCDSB announced it was experiencing a significant network disruption that impacted all of its schools on Monday, January 6. All schools were open, but there was no access to the internet for both staff and students. Parents who had to notify schools if their children were to be absent had to do things the old-fashioned way and call the school by telephone.
The UCDSB did officially confirm on January 6 that a cyber security incident had indeed occurred. Police were notified and the UCDSB began working with experts to assess the impact and restore services. All online services at schools have remained offline until network access could be safely restored. On January 6, the UCDSB announced that at that time, there was no indication that any personal data had been compromised.
As of Wednesday, January 8, the UCDSB was still experiencing disruptions to services across all of its schools and working around the clock to safely restore access and assess the impact of the cyber incident. The UCDSB emphasized that the technological disruptions did not pose any risk to student safety. The My Family Room service remained offline and telephone calls were still required to notify schools if students were absent. Attendance was being taken manually and if students were not present, schools were calling the parent/guardian on file.
Registrations of new students at UCDSB schools could only be done in person at schools due to online services being unavailable.
By Friday, January 10, the UCDSB continued efforts to resolve the situation and some services had returned online, but student absences still had to be reported by telephone only.
