Jul 31, 2025
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BAR HARBOR—The Bar Harbor town government announced Thursday that its town office would be closed July 30 and August 1 after a breach of its computer network.
The breach occurred July 30.
“The town has full control of all systems, and removed access from the bad actors,” the town’s news flash reads.
The town reports that it will “work with a team of cybersecurity professionals to assess our infrastructure and ensure a safe and quick return to normal business for the residents of Bar Harbor.”
In March, Bar Harbor municipal and school officials dealt with a cybercrime that tried to compromise some of the bond money to pay for the rebuilding of the Conners Emerson School, a project that had already begun.
It was an ever-evolving situation, but School Superintendent Mike Zboray became aware that the town’s bond payment for the new school was stolen, March 11.
School staff reported the issue immediately to the Bar Harbor Police Department, the town government, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). The attack was investigated by the FBI.
“The crime involved a fraudulent request to change bank account information that was submitted on January 9, 2025, and subsequently processed by school staff,” Zboray wrote in a statement to the Bar Harbor community, March 14. “As a result, when Wright-Ryan Construction submitted a legitimate payment request on February 10, 2025, for $1,066,754 for the Bar Harbor School construction project, the funds were unknowingly transferred to the fraudulent account.”
The funds were returned.
“We also notified our bank and insurance providers, and the compromised payment system has been disabled,” Zboray wrote in March in a statement to the community. “Our current understanding is that the account that received the funds has been frozen, and it appears the funds have also been secured.”
A data breach for the Mount Desert Island regional school community, December 28, 2024 had prompted the school system to offer free credit monitoring for adults and identity protection services for minors, School Superintendent Mike Zboray said in January.
Zboray sent a mass email to the community detailing that the PowerSchool system had a cybersecurity breach.
PowerSchool is a large technology software platform that serves schools throughout North America. There was a cyberattack of that cloud-based software system in late December of 2024.
That December 28 data breach, according to MSN, led to the theft of “sensitive personal information, such as names, addresses, and in some cases Social Security numbers and medical information…. Data breaches can lead to identity theft, leaving victims vulnerable to fraud and other illegal activities.”
The Bar Harbor Story has reached out to the town to find out the name of the cybersecurity team that’s working on the breach, what was accessed during the breach, if there is anything the public should do or be aware of, when town officials and department heads were notified, as well as how the town became aware of the breach. We have not heard back. We will update this story when and if we do.
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