Employee personal data exposed in NJ school district cyber breach

🔴 The Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District initially reported a "service disruption" in December

🔴 Personal data of employees in the district insurance was exposed

🔴 The district did not disclose how many files were exposed

BRIDGEWATER — A New Jersey public school district's data breach in December exposed personal data of employees — but those affected were not notified until the end of January.

The breach occurred in the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District between Dec. 10 and 12 and exposed the names and Social Security numbers of district employees and others who are in the district's insurance plan, according to a media release obtained by MyCentralJersey.com.

Former employee records were also exposed, according to Patch.

As of Friday afternoon, the district had not responded to New Jersey 101.5's request for the release. It was also not posted on the district website or social media accounts.

A letter was sent to those whose records may have been breached on Jan. 27. They were offered a free one-year membership with Experian Identity WorksSM Credit 3B which offers protection service and helps detect fraud.

Neither report addressed how many records were breached or when the district knew the extent of the breach.

December "Service Disruption"

In a message posted on the district website on Dec. 15 the school did acknowledge a "service disruption" that occurred Dec. 12 that forced the district's phones, email, internet and wifi service offline.

The district message did not disclose the origin of the disruption or anything else being affected.

In the release cited in the reports, the district said it has used an outside cybersecurity firm to investigate the breach.

NJ internet outages, possible external disruption?

A number of NJ school districts and at least one hospital have been affected by internet outages during this school year.

Classes were canceled for three days in early for the Monroe Township school district in Gloucester County because of an “an unauthorized third party” that affected the school’s internet.

A problem with "internal servers" caused an early end to classes Dec. 5 at the Hudson County Schools of Technology Secaucus and Jersey City campuses.

CentraState Hospital in Freehold was also impacted by an interruption of internet service that forced the staff to revert to completing paperwork by hand for a time.

In all three cases, the origin of the outage was never publicly disclosed.

Dan Alexander is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com

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