Missouri to spend $800K for credit monitoring for teachers as education leader apologizes for data vulnerability

(The Center Square) – The leader of Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) on Wednesday apologized for an incident where its website exposed personal information of certified teachers and announced free credit monitoring.

“Educators have enough on their plates right now and I want to apologize to them for this incident and the additional inconvenience it may cause them,” Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven said in a statement. “It is unacceptable. The security of the data we collect is of the utmost importance to our agency. Rest assured that we are working closely with OA-ITSD (Office of Administration Information Technology Services Division) to resolve this situation.”

DESE will be sending letters to approximately 620,000 past and present certified teachers offering a year of credit and identity theft monitoring. In October, media outlets reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch informed DESE of a vulnerability in its database of certified teachers accessible through its website. DESE will spend approximately $800,000 for IDX’s monitoring.

Unlike previous statements made by Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson, DESE and the Office of Administration, todays’ release didn’t describe the incident as a “hack.” On Oct. 15, Gov. Parson called for the Missouri Highway Patrol and the Cole County prosecuting attorney to conduct an investigation of the media outlet.

Wednesday’s release called the events a “recent data vulnerability incident. The state is unaware of any misuse of individual information or if information was accessed inappropriately outside of an isolated incident.”

DESE acknowledged the personal information was only accessible through accessing individual records through the website’s search tool. It stated the social security numbers of all the database entries weren’t revealed in total at one time through the website vulnerability.

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