Huntsville City Schools district in Alabama shuts down its operations for the rest of the week due to ransomware attack.
Huntsville City Schools district in Alabama shuts down its operations for the rest of the week due to ransomware attack.
The Huntsville City Schools district comprises around 24,000 students, 2,300 employees, and thirty-seven schools. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the school district provided both in-school education and fully online learning.
As students returned from Thanksgiving break, on November 30, the school district announced an early dismissal of students after a cyberattack disrupted their IT systems.
The school system was alerted to the cybersecurity threat after a high volume of calls to the IT help desk, more than usual for Monday.
As soon as the school found out that it was a ransomware attack, they were forced to shut down schools for the remaining week.
The district asked the students and faculties who loaned devices, to shut down and remain off until further notice to prevent the spreading of ransomware.
Families have been advised to be suspicious of any emails from the Huntsville City Schools district requesting student details as it could be phishing attacks from the ransomware actors.
"Families will not receive any district correspondence requesting their student’s name or personal information. HCS encourages families to be extremely cautious in sharing personal information with anyone. Avoid opening any emails and do not click on any links from unfamiliar email accounts," advised the district.
““That malicious party will basically encrypt your files and ask for money for the key or the ransom to get your data back,” said Scott McDaniel, Vice 1hPresident of Technologies for Simple Helix.
"You guys need to be extremely transparent with this process, and we need to know exactly what info was compromised on your servers and how it was achieved," a parent posted to Facebook.
The district did not disclose what information was compromised during the attack, but they say that they are working with authorities to investigate all possibilities.
For the latest cyber threats and the latest hacking news please follow us on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.
You may be interested in reading: How to Survive the COVID Time Cyber Security Threats?