Tag Archive for: school

Scranton School District suffered a ransomware attack

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Scranton School District in Pennsylvania suffered a ransomware attack

Pierluigi Paganini
March 16, 2024

School districts continue to be under attack, schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania, are suffering a ransomware attack.

This week, schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania, experienced a ransomware attack, resulting in IT outages. The Scranton School District is working with third-party forensic specialists to investigate the security breach and restore impacted systems.

“The attack is causing a temporary disruption to some of our computer systems and services. We are working diligently with third party forensic specialists, that we engaged last evening, to investigate the source of this incident, confirm its impact on our systems, and to restore full functionality to the system as soon as possible,” reads a post published by the Scranton School District on Facebook they wrote.  

“Scranton School District’s computer system was recently hacked and infected with ransomware, according to acting Superintendent Patrick Laffey.” reported The Time Tribune.

The district ordered school staff not to use any electronic devices and uninstall any school-related apps from their mobile devices, said Rosemary Boland, president of the Scranton Federation of Teachers.

“As you know, some files may be inaccessible during this period as we, and the third-party forensic specialists, continue the investigation. Due to the increased security measures placed in our systems, some functions may be slower than usual.”

The Scranton School District website is not reachable and their Facebook account is not available at the time of this writing.

The Scranton School District is a large, urban school district located in Scranton, Pennsylvania in the Wyoming Valley region. The district encompasses approximately 26 square miles. According to the 2020 census, the Scranton School District serves a resident population of 76,997.

The school district includes 15 schools and serves more than 9000 students.

The Scranton School District reported “network-related issues” on Thursday, the problems caused a disruption for computer systems and services in the District. The issues caused the school…

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Kershaw County School Hit By Black Suit Ransomware

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The Kershaw County School District, a prominent educational institution in the USA, has allegedly fallen victim to a cyberattack by the notorious Black Suit ransomware group.

The cybercriminals claim to successfully infiltrated the school’s systems, leading to the unauthorized extraction and subsequent leak of a staggering 17.5 GB of sensitive data.

Magnitude of Cyberattack on Kershaw County School

The Kershaw County School District, accommodating more than 10,500 students and boasting a staff of over 1,000 employees, has become the latest target in a string of cyberattacks plaguing the US education sector.

The Cyber Express team reached out to school authorities for confirmation of the cyberattack. However, at the time of reporting, no official response has been received, casting uncertainty over the legitimacy of the cyberattack on Kershaw County School claims.

Interestingly, the school’s official website remains operational and unaffected, raising questions about the credibility of the Kershaw County School cyberattack assertions.

Kershaw County School cyberattack
Source: HackManac

This cyberattack on Kershaw County School marks a recurring trend in the education sector, particularly K-12 institutions, which have increasingly become prime targets for cybercriminals.

Why Educational Institutions Are Targets

A research report from the Center for Internet Security highlights the vulnerability of public schools in the US to such malicious activities. This revelation follows the closure of two US schools due to recent cyberattacks, further highlighting the severity of the situation.

The Jackson County Intermediate School District (ISD) faced a disruptive ‘system outage,’ prompting the closure of several public schools reliant on its technology services. The outage impacted critical systems, including telephones, classroom technology, and heating facilities.

As investigations into the incident continue, Superintendent Kevin Oxley declared a day’s leave for affected schools in Jackson and Hillsdale counties, aiming to facilitate the thorough detection and resolution of the issue.

In a separate incident, Stanford University, a prestigious research institution, grappled with a cybersecurity breach in…

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North Tonawanda School District tightens computer system security after state audit

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The North Tonawanda City School District has tightened protection of its computer network following an audit of its security procedures, according to a report from the State Comptroller’s Office.

“Most of the issues that were identified during the audit were addressed immediately,” School Superintendent Gregory J. Woytila wrote in response to technology audit for time between July 1, 2022, and April 12, 2023. “These enhancements will be part of the corrective action plan drafted in response to the findings.”

Auditors discovered 246 unnecessary user accounts that were subsequently disabled. Fifty-five of them were non-student accounts assigned to previous district employees, contractors and interns. One of them had been assigned to a substitute teacher who left in 2019.

The audit also found 29 unnecessary shared user accounts which were disabled and learned that no one kept track of the accounts or had a policy to disable them. Auditors said they were told that no policy had been developed because the district had not experienced a data leak or cyberattack in more than 20 years.

The audit additionally advised the district to develop an IT contingency plan so that employees could communicate and continue doing their jobs in case of a disruption.

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Georgia School District Goes Offline After Suspicious Activity

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(TNS) — Henry County Schools Superintendent Mary Elizabeth Davis said Tuesday leaders continue to investigate “suspicious activity” that has resulted in the district restricting Internet access since last week.

In a video posted to YouTube, Davis did not say what activity led the south metro Atlanta district to decide to take its Internet offline on Thursday, but said that student services, payroll, billing and other district operations remain functional as the school system conducts a probe of its network.

“What we know now is that last week suspicious activity was detected on our network,” she said. “And as you would expect, we take matters of this nature very seriously.”


The district’s investigators are being joined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, Henry County Police Department and others in its probe, Davis said.

Henry Schools said late last week that district operations ”will continue for students with the exception of online courses.” In addition, leaders said lunches, bus services and after-school activities would “continue as normal.” The livestream of the Henry school board’s Monday meeting was canceled because of the district’s restricted Internet functions.

Davis did not say when Internet functionality would return to the system or when the district might have answers in the investigation, including defining the “suspicious activity.”

She did, however, seek to find a bright side to the challenges.

“It really has been amazing to see the agility of our organization kick in,” she said. “As always, the Henry County team of professionals, our students and our parents have responded with amazing adaptability as we keep school operations going, maintain student learning and maintain functionality of our core business applications.”

©2023 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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