PROVIDENCE – The state’s largest public school district has experienced a network security breach and the school board will meet in a special executive session Wednesday evening as to how to address it “with urgency.”
Providence School Board President Erlin R. Rogel in a post Wednesday on X confirmed that a breach occurred at the Providence Public School District. Rogel said the board will meet with Providence School Superintendent Javier Montañez about how the breach occurred, what’s being done to resolve it and how students and families are being supported.
Additionally, the board and district, Rogel said, wants to learn “what liability resides” with the district’s network security vendor and what measures are being taken “to ensure this doesn't happen again.”
Rogel’s confirmation comes a week after the district told the community that its information technology staff detected “irregular activity” on its network. In response, PPSD on Sept. 12 told the community that it shut down the internet and network, and IT experts did a forensic review of the network at the time. Montañez told the community on Sept. 16 that while more information is being gathered as to what happened, initial findings “did not show evidence that district data was compromised.”
On Tuesday, HackManac, an international cybersecurity company, posted on X claiming that a ransomware group called Medusa had breached PPSD. The post alleges that financial data, correspondence, and students’ and teachers’ data were among the information stolen by Medusa and demands a $1 million payment by Sept. 24.
PPSD did not confirm when asked by Providence Business News if the network security breach was the ransomware attack that HackManac alleged to have occurred. PPSD spokesperson Jay Wegimont told PBN the district and its third-party IT agency contacted the R.I. State Police, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when the district discovered the network irregularity on Sept. 11 “out of an abundance of caution” and the network analysis is ongoing.
State Police officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from PBN.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on X at @James_Bessette.
