Anxiety lingers months after WRDSB cyberattack
Posted May 4, 2023 02:30:41 PM.
Education workers are continuing to feel anxious over what could happen to their private information after the cyberattack on the Waterloo Region District School Board this past summer.
The data that the hackers accessed affects employees dating back to 1970.
Retired Kitchener teacher John Ryrie told the Mike Farwell show Thursday morning that current and former staff are feeling concerned for their personal savings, credit ratings and identity, which he believes could take years to restore.
“Because we don’t have a constant contact with the bigger issue, we don’t quite know what will happen,” he said. “So there’s a certain amount of anxiety that’s still out there amongst our members in terms of how well their personal information is being protected.”
Ryrie is still wondering what the school board has done over the last year to decide what employee information to keep and discard, and when members will be informed of those decisions.
“We need to be ever vigilant,” he said. “If we’re not ever vigilant, we’re going to be in some deep trouble if our accounts and our credit ratings and all that kind of stuff is being compromised or stolen.”
The former teacher and other local retired staff have been working with a company to come up with an affordable option for teachers to protect their private information, and in addition to what the school board offers at the end of the year.
“We’re trying to get as much protection as we can for people,” he said.
