ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A popular app used by parents, teachers and students to communicate experienced a breach Wednesday morning, the company announced.
The app called Seesaw, which is an interactive learning platform for Pre-K through fifth-grade students, said that a link with an explicit image was shared through the messages feature.
"It appears that specific accounts were compromised by an outside actor," Seesaw said in a message to users.
The company turned off messages for all users while an investigation got underway Wednesday morning. In addition, Seesaw reset passwords for any users whose accounts were compromised, the link to the image was removed and additional measures were taken to prevent any further spread of the image, the company said.
Some parents in the Tampa Bay area were alerted about the incident, according to a tip to 10 Tampa Bay. To avoid any further spread of the image, a school said in a message to parents it would disable Seesaw for students until the app fixed the problem.
Other school districts across the country also reported incidents. Troy City School District in Troy, New York, sent out a message to parents on Facebook alerting them of the explicit image sent around warning them to, "not read or click any links until Seesaw has resolved the issue." Huber Heights City Schools in Ohio sent out a similar alert on their Facebook account.
Seesaw was able to reenable the messages feature by around 1:40 p.m. as the company said it continues to monitor and investigate the breach.