RUSD reports December cyber incident affected staff data; district lays out remediation and monitoring steps

Racine Unified School District officials used the March 3 work session to present their OE-7 asset protection monitoring review and to detail a December cyber incident that affected staff data.

Asset protection lead Mister Peltz told the board the district experienced a cyber incident on Dec. 13. "We've emailed family that no student data was compromised. Unfortunately, staff data was compromised," he said, and staff and former staff received notifications with one year of credit monitoring provided through TransUnion. Peltz encouraged board members with detailed questions to speak directly with Mr. Gajewski, the district administrator handling incident response.

Peltz said the district worked to bring systems back online and that recovery occurred around the third week in January. He praised staff and teachers for operating without full technology for several weeks. On remediation and preparedness, Peltz provided approximate cost figures: about $30,000 annually for cyber insurance (insurer/policy not named) and roughly $400,000–$500,000 annually on hardware and software tools including firewalls, backup processes, antivirus/EDR and other protective tools. "When it comes to hardware, software, I wanna say pushing forward to $500,000 annually for cyber tools," he said.

Board members asked about phishing testing and awareness programs; one board member noted the district's proactive phishing tests to improve staff resilience. Peltz also highlighted non-cyber asset work: roughly 20,000 pounds of secure recycling and about 50,000 pounds of electronic equipment sent to a certified recycler, and approximately $21,000–$22,000 in district auction sales through publicservice.com.

No new formal policy actions were taken March 3; staff outlined ongoing remediation, one-year credit monitoring for affected staff, and continued investments in cyber tools and training.