As of 9 AM today (October 10), 2,640 START account holders have accessed the START system. Yesterday (October 9), Louisiana’s 529 college START savings accounts were brought back online with limited functionality after a cyber incident led the entire system to be taken offline. This is the first step toward full restoration of the START system operated by the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA), a program of the Louisiana Board of Regents.
All START accounts are secured , and the system has been monitored throughout the disruption by LOSFA, Regents, the State Treasurer, and relevant banking systems.
Notifications regarding the cyber incident will be sent today by email to the 40,000 START account holders with an email address on file; the balance of the account holders will receive notification of the incident by mail. All account holders are being informed that START accounts are now available online for viewing. For security reasons, the cyber incident notification message does not include any links to START accounts or the system.
As functionality is being restored, LOSFA staff continue to address the backlog of transactions. Checks are beginning to be disbursed, and additional transactions are being verified and processed.
At the time of the incident, educational institutions were notified of the disruption to Louisiana’s 529 college savings program and asked to work with all affected students to minimize any impact on educational services.
Additional information will be shared in the coming days regarding the timeline for restoring full operations of both START accounts and the entire LOSFA system. As operations are reinstated, Louisiana State Police, Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), and LOSFA are continuously monitoring the security of the system. Protecting the security and privacy of the state’s information systems is of the highest importance, and lessons learned will be applied in developing future resilience measures.
If you have questions about your START account, please contact start@laregents.edu.
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Contact
Chris Yandle, Ph.D., APR, Associate Commissioner for Strategic Communications
chris.yandle@laregents.edu • 985-373-5845