Employees concerned after Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board cyberattack

Employees with the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board say they are concerned about a recent cyberattack that likely stole their personal information.

"My co-workers and I are devastated about this," said Crystal Krauter-Maki, president of CUPE Local 4148, which represents educational assistants, early childhood educators and secretaries at the school board.

"It was a ransomware hack. So they had stolen our information."

On Dec. 15 the school board cancelled classes due to what it called a "cyber incident", which shut down a lot of its communications network, including phones and employee email accounts.

The Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board includes schools in Sault Ste. Marie, Espanola, Elliot Lake and several other towns in the Algoma district.

When classes resumed after the Christmas break, a Jan. 3 update from director of education Danny Viotto and board chair Gary Trembinski said perpetrators compromised their network and were likely able to steal information about people employed there between 2019 and 2022. That information would include their social insurance numbers, date of birth, compensation and banking information.

Who's to say in two years the hackers aren't going to take all of our personal financial information that they had stolen and misuse it at any time.- Crystal Krauter-Maki

As a response, the school board offered its employees two years of free creditor monitoring from TransUnion.

Krauter-Maki said the cyber attack has already affected compensation for some of her members.

"Many of my co-workers, including myself, are 10-month employees," she said.

"So every Christmas we get laid off for two weeks. At Christmas time we rely on employment insurance."

Krauter-Maki said because of the issues caused by the cyber attack, the school board was delayed in submitting employees' records of employment so they could apply for employment insurance.

She said that has since been resolved, but it has meant some workers have gone a month without pay while it was sorted out. 

Krauter-Maki said she and her colleagues welcomed the free credit monitoring, but she added she was also worried about what could happen with their personal information once the service expires.

"Who's to say in two years the hackers aren't going to take all of our personal financial information that they had stolen and misuse it at any time, right? Or sell it to other fraudsters," she said.

She added she has not heard of anyone who had their identity stolen since the cyber attack, but it was still early.

Krauter-Maki also questioned how the attack happened in the first place, and said the board needs more education to help employees protect themselves from future cyber attacks.

Darrell Czop, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association for the school board, said his members were also concerned when they heard about the cyberattack.

But Czop said he and his members were also happy with the school board's response.

"I'm confident that we're being supported the best we can," he said.

"I did already enrol with TransUnion. I received the personalized letter from the board yesterday and I opened it up, and I registered right away. And I'll do what I can. I'm encouraging our members to do the same."