School reopenings — already bogged down by concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic — are being further complicated by targeted ransomware and denial-of-service attacks.
This week, Hartford Public Schools (HPS) in Connecticut became the latest to announce a ransomware attack that in its case forced school reopening to be delayed by one day. School officials said multiple critical systems had been knocked offline by the attack, including one used to communicate transportation routes to the district's bus company. That prevented the district's ability to operate schools on Tuesday as scheduled, HPS said.
Multiple other school districts have reported similar incidents in recent days. On Tuesday, the Clark County School District in Las Vegas said some of its systems had been infected with ransomware on Aug. 27. The incident impacted systems containing current and former employee data, according to the school district.
Last month, Hayward County Schools in North Carolina was forced to discontinue online classes for students for several days — including opening day — following a ransomware attack. More than a week after the intrusion, many services remained unavailable, and school officials warned that restoration work could take several weeks. They later announced the attack had also resulted in sensitive data potentially belonging to employees and students being compromised in the incident. Similarly, school reopening at Oklahoma's Ponca City School system was ransomware attacks disrupt school reopenings
