Lamar county school district faces data breach

LAMAR COUNTY, Miss. - This is a statement released from Superintendent Tess Smith.

The Lamar County School District (LCSD) uses a company called INNOVAK to handle our employee portal. This portal allows our staff to access their pay stubs and their W2s via the internet. It is my understanding that this company had a security breach. This breach affected several school districts in MS and AL. The FBI and the IRS have been notified and are working to resolve the issue. LCSD was notified in early April. As we obtained the names of those affected district staff contacted them personally. There are approximately 28 staff members directly affected, but I chose to notify the entire school district. We only have 28 confirmed issues, but if there is even the slightest possibility that others could be affected they needed to hear the information from us as soon as possible.

The breach was related to employee W2s only. No other information has been accessed according to INNOVAK.

INNOVAK has since locked down the portal requiring staff to be at one of our sites in order to access the information. Other precautions and safeties have been put in place as well.

When we notified staff we gave them detailed instructions on how to best protect themselves in this situation. We are working with INNOVAK and the IRS in order to assist the affected employees and will continue to do so until this matter is resolved.

​If you have other questions, please let me know. ​