WRDSB lawyer clarifies police timeline in cyber attack

More details are emerging surrounding when the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) reported a cyber attack on its systems to police.

Questions were raised earlier this week when Waterloo regional police confirmed they had only been asked to investigate “recently.”

The board has said sensitive employee information dating back to the 1970s was accessed during the hack which it discovered on July 10. Some student data was also compromised.

On Wednesday, the board’s lawyer said the attack was reported to Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) on July 19 – nine days after the board says it was discovered.

“We notified the police on July 19 and we believed that would have opened an investigation,” said Eric Charleston, a lawyer for the WRDSB.

When CTV Kitchener contacted OPP about the investigation, they said provincial police would not be the ones to investigate and that an incident like this would be the jurisdiction of the regional police.

Charleston said the school board was not told the same thing by OPP.

He added they learned regional police would be investigating sometime in late August.

“Waterloo regional police reached out to us, and we've been sharing information with them ever since,” said Charleston.

Charleston couldn't comment on if anyone was investigating the cyber attack between the time OPP were notified on July 19, and when WRPS reached out around late August.

Charleston said the incident was originally reported to OPP because of their experience in this area.

“We've reported to OPP on a number of incidents, and they are highly capable, I would say [an] elite police authority, and they have great experience with these types of incidents,” Charleston said.

Charleston was only able to answer questions about the timeline of reporting to police, and not broader details around the cyber incident and how it is being handled.

The school board has said it's been assured any information that was stolen has been deleted.