LCS Board Announces a January 7 cybersecurity incident
By Carol A.Gasser Moore
Lakeland, LANIER COUNTY, Georgia – A January 14th letter to Lanier County School (LCS) District staff and families informs the public that Lanier County Schools has indirectly been a cybersecurity event. That event is said to have occurred on Tuesday, January 7.
While the cybersecurity event did not directly target the Lanier County School system, the school system’s security was affected.
According to the letter signed by LCS Superintendent Gene Culpepper, the vendor for the LCS Student Information System (SIS) was the target. This in turn affected information that is included within the LCS PowerSchool program as well as other SIS customers in the United States and Canada.
Culpepper states that PowerSchool “notified our leadership team of a cybersecurity incident that may have involved unauthorized access to certain PowerSchool SIS customer data, including information related to Lanier County Schools. As of Monday, January 13, 2025, Power Scchool confirmed that some of the compromised data pertains to families and staff members in our district.”
PowerSchool has indicated that compromised data includes:
- Parent and student contact information (names, addresses)
- Personally identifiable information (PII, i.e., Social Security numbers, medical information, etc.)
LCS states that “PowerSchool is actively investigating whether PII belong to our students, staff, or families was affected and is working urgently to provide further details”.
LCS through Culpepper indicates that both safety and security of LCS students and staff is its priority. PowerSchool is addressing the cybersecurity breach and that the LCS system will be given updated information as it is available.
Superintendent Gene Culpepper has announced that updated information will be made available to the public as it is made available to the LCS system.
