Pinal County school officials confirmed to ABC15 that their data processing service consortium was attacked over the weekend, putting paychecks in jeopardy for some school employees this week throughout the 21 districts in the county.
What happened
An employee of the Casa Grande Union High School District says staff members were first told of a potential "glitch" in the system that could impact direct deposit paychecks on Tuesday.
Staff were told paper checks would be issued this week, but on Thursday afternoon, another email was sent out warning about concerns the county may not reach the deadline to issue paychecks.
In a statement, Pinal County Superintendent Jill Broussard told ABC15:
"The Pinal County School Office Data Processing Service Consortium was the victim of a ransomware attack this past weekend. Our staff has been working diligently, around the clock, to restore access to the data for our school districts. To our knowledge, our employee data has not been compromised. We will continue to investigate and update the districts. Most of the system has been restored and the districts have access, as of last night. Payrolls that were submitted prior to the attack have been processed as usual. We are moving forward with processing the remaining district payrolls with an expected distribution of checks on their regularly scheduled pay date."
'People need to be on guard.'
"Cybercriminals have figured out that by attacking schools, it's one-stop shopping," retired FBI Special Agent John Iannarelli told ABC15. "They have tons of information they can resell on the dark web. They also have money, taxpayer dollars that they can use to steal as well."
Iannarelli oversaw cyber-intelligence investigations and said th ..
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