Incident Details
Superintendent Michelle Reid announced in a letter to families that the investigation regarding the inadvertent sharing of private information of certain students with a parent during a meeting in the fall at Fairfax County Public Schools has been completed. An external inquiry carried out by the legal firm Woods Rogers revealed that the breach of data occurred due to the parent having possession of old thumb drives containing unedited files. These files had been collected by the county in compliance with the parent's prior request under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Unfortunately, the files were left unattended in accessible boxes during the parent's in-person inspection, and they were unnoticedly taken by the parent, who then copied and removed them from FCPS premises.
Incident
How Did the Breach Happen?
The data breach happened when the parent unintentionally accessed old thumb drives containing unredacted files that were kept in easily accessible boxes during her in-person inspection.
What Data has been Compromised?
This incident involved the exposure of confidential details belonging to other students.
Why Did the company's Security Measures Fail?
The security protocols were ineffective when unedited files stored on outdated USB drives were inadvertently misplaced in boxes that were accessible to the parent for her in-person evaluation.
What Immediate Impact Did the Breach Have on the company?
The exact repercussions of the breach are not detailed in the information that was given.
How could this have been prevented?
Taking measures to securely store outdated thumb drives containing sensitive information could have stopped this breach from happening.
What have we learned from this data breach?
The significance of maintaining appropriate data storage and access control measures to avoid the unauthorized exposure of confidential information has been underscored by this instance of data breach.
Summary of Coverage
Fairfax County Public Schools accidentally disclosed private information of additional students to a parent who had access to old thumb drives containing unredacted files. This breach could have been avoided by safeguarding the thumb drives and ensuring they were not reachable by unauthorized individuals.