Toronto district school board reports ransomware attack
Learn More
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) reported a ransomware attack targeting its technology testing environment. TDSB manages 582 schools for approximately 235,000 students, making it the largest school board in Canada.
The environment is used to test programs before they are implemented in the official systems and is separate from the board's main networks. The incident is reported on June 12, 2024 after detection of unauthorized access to the technology testing environment and active ransomware. TDSB claims that the test environment was compromised, but the main operational systems of TDSB remain unaffected.
The TDSB's cybersecurity team secured the attacked environment and isolated critical systems. Then they notified the Toronto Police Service and Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has been notified. TDSB engaged third-party cybersecurity experts to assess the incident.
No details are disclosed of any compromised data or affected individuals. The board has assured that victims will be notified if personal information was accessed.
Update - as of 30th of August 2024, the Toronto District School Board confirmed that student information was compromised in the ransomware attack. The breach is attributed to the LockBit gang. The breached testing environment separate from TDSB’s official networks contained data for some students from the 2023/2024 school year, including:
- names,
- school names,
- grades,
- school email addresses,
- student numbers,
- dates of birth.
The number of affected individuals is not disclosed.
On Thursday 29th of August 2024, the LockBit group claimed responsibility for the attack and demanded an undisclosed ransom, giving TDSB 13 days to comply.
