MONROE, La. – Students throughout Ouachita Parish recently received emails that had parents concerned about a possible hack. The emails were sent around 6:15 p.m. Monday evening which prompted the it department at the Ouachita Parish School Board to open an immediate investigation.
“We found there was basically a student email chain that had been started including most all of the student email accounts” says Clint Miller, Interim IT Director for the Ouachita Parish School Board.
It was the content of the chain that had parents concerned about a possible hack.
“They started out with just hi, hello, who’s this. there have been some reports that there may potentially be some inappropriate content that we’re investigating” Miller said.
The issue was corrected within 15 minutes and all emails were able to be deleted from student accounts. The investigation continues into why the emails were sent, but the school board wants to assure parents this was an internal incident.
“There’s no indication of any email accounts that were hacked or compromised in any way” Miller said.
Miller also says if inappropriate content is found then students responsible will be held to their computer acceptable use policy, as well as their school discipline policy. They have also made changes to emails settings, as well as added more virtual filters to prevent this from happening again.
