Executive Director’s Update to Principals #60 - 27 October 2025

Update on SIMON service access

Following the security alerts issued by the SIMON team on Friday, I would like to provide an update on access to the SIMON service.

As you may be aware, the SIMON service was taken offline on Friday after we detected some unusual login activity. This involved the unauthorised use of student and staff user credentials to create fake accounts. We are continuing to investigate this incident and are working with external experts to help ensure we take all appropriate action in response to this activity.

From our investigation to date, we do not have any evidence to suggest that any user information held on the platform has been affected, or that any other systems are involved. Should this position change, we will notify relevant parties as required.

Students and staff can access SIMON from within their school environments. The SIMONEverywhere and PAM apps remain offline while we conduct additional checks as a precautionary measure.

As outlined in previous emails, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) has been enabled. It is imperative that schools keep MFA activated and do not disable it, under any circumstance. It is also important to note that logging in to SIMON may take longer than usual due to the new security measures that have been implemented.

We remind all our schools to remain alert to any suspicious communications (such as phishing emails). If you receive any suspicious communications, please do not click on any link or document included in the email. Please also be alert to any Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) attempts being sent to your email inboxes that were not instigated by you and report any instances of this to your local IT support.

We will provide further updates on the restoration of the app services as soon as we can. In the interim, we understand that you will likely want to issue updates to your school community about this service disruption and have provided a communication template that you can adjust with your own school details and use to advise and inform parents and carers.

We have created a dedicated webpage to answer any questions you may have regarding this incident. The communications template for your school communities and information on how to utilise MFA are also included on the webpage.

There will also be a briefing for all DOBCEL Principals at 11am on Monday 27 October to discuss this service disruption. A Microsoft Teams link will be shared with you shortly.

Please do not hesitate to contact our dedicated team via email at enquiries@simonschools.net if you have any questions.