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Notice of fraudulent activity issued on April 25, 2025

Please see questions and answers developed to keep the community informed. We continue to diligently investigate and protect potentially affected individuals. This information was updated as of April 28, 2025.

Frequently Asked Questions: Updated April 28, 2025

Concerning Notice of Fraudulent Activity issued by the Vancouver School Board April 25, 2025

Questions and Answers

Q. How and when did the incident occur?

The incident occurred on April 23, 2025, and was detected within the first hour of occurrence. It was fully contained the same date. The perpetrators were attempting to fraudulently obtain funds from the Vancouver School Board. In the course of doing so, information stored by a third-party payment system may have been briefly available to the perpetrators.

Q. Who was impacted by this event?

The incident potentially impacts employees, vendors and tuition payers who received electronic funds transfers from the Vancouver School Board within the last 180 days.

Q. What information is at risk?

The information that may potentially be at risk is limited to information used to process electronic funds transfers, such as

  • bank account number,
  • name or company name, and
  • VSB issued employee ID numbers.

The impacted information does not include identifiers such as social insurance number, date of birth or taxation information.

 Q. What is the current status of the VSB’s investigation? 

Our investigation into the incident is currently ongoing. At this point, we are attempting to verify the extent of any risk. We do not have any clear evidence that financial account information is currently at risk, is being used fraudulently or that it has been accessed or stolen by the perpetrators of this event. However, while the investigation is ongoing, we have issued notifications to ensure affected individuals are aware so that they are able to take steps to protect themselves.

 Q. What are the risks for those who have been affected? 

In the wrong hands, information about a person’s bank account can be used for fraudulent purposes, such as making unauthorized transfers, withdrawals or purchases, to create fake cheques or engage in other fraudulent uses of an account.

Q. How can I protect myself?

Although our investigation is still ongoing, there are a number of steps you can take now to protect yourself:

  • Contact your financial institution for advice. They may recommend that you change your account number or put other protections in place.
  • Review account activity for any accounts you use to receive payments from the VSB in order to identify any suspicious transactions occurring on or after April 23, 2025. If you detect any unauthorized activity, notify your financial institution immediately.
  • Be vigilant. Do not respond to unsolicited phone calls or emails that purport to be from the VSB asking you to provide financial or personal information. We will not request this kind of information from you by email or phone.
  • As a matter of best practices, become familiar with the ways that you can avoid cyber crime and fraud, including the risk of identity theft. For example, please refer to the following resources:  Government of Canada  and the  Canadian Bankers Association  .

 Q. What is the VSB doing in response to this incident? 

We are working with our third-party banking services provider to fully investigate what has taken place, and to verify whether staff and third-party financial account information is at risk. We have notified the police and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, and are fully cooperating with these agencies on incident response. Union representatives/labour partners were also informed as was the Board of Education and the Ministry of Education and Child Care. In the coming weeks, we will also be carefully reviewing security protocols with our third-party banking providers to confirm that all appropriate protections are in place.

Q. Will the VSB be providing credit monitoring?

Our immediate priorities have been to contain the incident, notify the community and mount a careful investigation. We will be in a better position to make decisions about other risk mitigation strategies, like credit monitoring, when we have more information about what took place. However, the best and most effective strategy to protect against unauthorized use of your account information is to monitor your account and to contact your financial institution and seek their advice.

Q. Does this incident affect students or parents?

No. This incident does not affect most students or parents. Systems that are used to process other student/parents’ payments, such as School Cash Online, are not affected by this incident.

However, international students (or their agents) who receive payments from the VSB are potentially impacted, and should following the above guidance.

 Q. How can I change my account information with the VSB? 

Employees wishing to update their account information can contact the payroll department. Payroll staff will guide you through the timing of updating banking information.

Vendors can email:  vsb_acctpay@vsb.bc.ca  for assistance.

Tuition-payers can contact the International Education team at  intered@vsb.bc.ca  for assistance.

 Q. Will this incident affect payroll or scheduled payments? 

No. We have put alternate secure systems in place. We do not expect any disruptions to payroll or other scheduled payments.

Who can I contact for more information?

If you have further questions, please contact the following:

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