The Austintown School District is investigating a scam that affected more than a thousand student email accounts.

According to the district's technology director, Tom Ventresco, an email asking for personal information was carefully crafted to deceive students by posing as a staff member.

According to Ventresco, on March 18, someone sent an email containing the superintendent's name and a form titled "Staff Attendance" to some employees. A staff member subsequently opened the scam email and completed the attached form.

Ventresco said the hacker was then able to gain access to their system. As a result an email notifying students about part-time employment opportunities was sent to 1,630 inboxes, asking them for their usernames, passwords, and financial details.

Luke Connolly, a threat analyst from the cyber security firm, Emsisoft, said these types of data breaches are not unusual and can lead to unfortunate ramifications for students. 

[Hackers] could use it for broad and identity theft. Students typically don't have a lot of credit history, so they can use that [information] to open new loans or credit cards and steal money that way. Possibly for fraudulently obtaining government benefits or fake identifications. They could sell the information on the dark web," Connolly said. 

A total of 183 students in the district fell victim to the scam, providing hackers with their school information. Connolly said that this data could potentially be used to extort schools or students.

Experts warn that identity theft and credit fraud are also risks that affected families should be aware of.

"They might want to consider implementing a credit check, a credit monitoring service and even a credit freeze for the student and possibly the parents as well," Connolly said. 

According to Ventresco the scam emails were removed from student email accounts and their passwords were reset.