OSSTF victim of ransomware attack, notifies members of personal data compromised

A woman uses her computer keyboard to type while surfing the internet in North Vancouver, B.C., on December 19, 2012. (Jonathan Hayward / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The union representing public high school teachers in Ontario says it was the victim of a ransomware attack earlier this year that compromised members' personal information.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation says it discovered in late May that an "unauthorized third party" accessed and encrypted its systems between May 25 and 30.

A statement from OSSTF says the union hired a cybersecurity firm to "contain" the incident, as well as investigate the scope and nature of the information accessed.

It is now reaching out to current and former members with details about their personal information involved in the breach, such as addresses and social insurance numbers, but the union did not say how many people are affected.

OSSTF says it has no evidence of misuse of the data, but it "may" pay for credit monitoring and identity theft protection services for affected members for a year.

The union says in its statement that it is committed to taking all necessary steps to prevent a similar incident from occurring in the future.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 23, 2022.