Florida Virtual School warning of data breach

Florida Virtual Schools is warning students and families about a data breach that may have occurred within a window between May 2016 and February 2018.

Bay District Schools officials said this is an FLVS security incident, not a school district one. Out of an abundance of caution, they want to make sure their students are made aware.

On FLVS's website, it reads the program has learned that "unauthorized individuals appear to have gained access" to computer systems with personal information.

Some of this information may include, but is not limited to students' names, dates of birth, and usernames and passwords.

Bay District Schools officials believe about 1,200 Bay District students could potentially be impacted, so they want to make sure parents and students check if they are affected.

"We're going to reach out to all the people that we think possibly could be a part of this as well, but there are also people unknown to us who, on their own, have accessed Florida Virtual that we don't know and we can't possibly send them a letter," Sharon Michalik, Director of Communications for Bay District Schools, said.

FLVS is offering potentially-impacted students one year of identity protection services through Experian.

It's available to students whose information was in the database from May 2nd, 2016 to February 12th, 2018, which is the window officials believe the breach occurred in.

"We're going to put this information out on our social media sites, a direct link for them to click, and they're going to get this through the mail also and then again through email with direct links to click," Michalik said.

The dedicated call center for the incident is (888) 829-6553.