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Student data may be part of Polk County cyber hack
Ken Suarez reports
LAKELAND, Fla. - An unknown number of Polk County children have become the victims of cybercrime.
In December 2019, hackers got into a company hired by the Polk County School District to help run a free meals program for certain kids.
The company, PCS Revenue Control Systems, just sent a letter to all the parents of Polk County kids, notifying them of the problem. The school district reinforced the message with robocalls.
Kevin Sapp, who has a nine-year-old and a 12-year-old in school, is frustrated.
"December 2019 is when the company found out there was a breach. That’s over a year, and that’s a little nerve-wracking," he told FOX 13. "There are questions that need to be answered, and they’re not providing any feedback."
It is unclear how many kids are affected.
PCS says the cybercriminals may have gotten children’s names, student IDs, and dates of birth. PCS
also says an unknown number of social security numbers may have been stolen.
That could be a big problem according to cyber-security experts.
"Think about it," explained Ron Frechette, CEO of Gold Sky Cyber Security Solutions. "That social security number has never been run to get credit or do whatever. So, this is fresh data. They can go out and try to get loans and do all kinds of stuff."
In a written statement, PCS says, "There is no evidence of any attempted or actual misuse of personal information."
However, the company is providing free security monitoring to the families affected by the breach.
Late Wednesday afternoon, the superintendent of schools in Hernando County posted a video on social media saying families in his district are being affected by the PCS data breach as well.
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