The Waterloo Region District School Board is warning some of its web-based systems may be temporarily taken offline as it works to address a cybersecurity concern. Developers released urgent fixes for a widely-used programming language, called PHP, after several websites around the world went down on Wednesday. They said hackers could exploit the bugs, called HP2Shell, to retrieve sensitive information like passwords. On Friday, the Waterloo Region District School Board shared an update with students, parents and caregivers. “To help protect our systems and information, our team is taking steps to apply the necessary security updates,” they posted on their website. “As part of this process, some school board servers, online portals and digital services may be temporarily taken offline while maintenance is underway.” The school board said there may be downtime or limited access while this work is happening. “Taking servers offline is a controlled, precautionary measure to ensure that all patches are applied thoroughly before systems are brought back online,” the post said. “Protecting student, parents, caregivers and staff information remains our top priority.”
