San Diego Unified advises students, staff to change passwords after cybersecurity threat

San Diego Unified School District officials notified parents this week of a cybersecurity threat, and advised all staff and students to change their account passwords.

No safety or emergency mechanisms were impacted and remain operational, Superintendent Lamont Jackson wrote in an email sent to parents.

He said after learning of the threat, district officials secured the network and launched an investigation. They also notified law enforcement.

District officials did not provide further information about what kind of cybersecurity incident occurred. Students will be given new passwords.

“We want our students and the San Diego Unified community to know that we place a high value on maintaining the integrity and security of the data we hold in our systems, and we are working diligently to complete our investigation of the incident,” Jackson said in the statement. “We will provide an additional update once our investigation is complete.”

This is not the first cybersecurity threat to affect a major Southern California school district in recent months.

A ransomware attack targeting the Los Angeles Unified School District prompted an unprecedented shutdown of its computer systems in September.

The district mandated 540,000 Los Angeles Unified students and 70,000 district employees change their passwords.