Scranton School District Reports Ransomware Attack

The Scranton, Pennsylvania school district has been experiencing computer outages due to a ransomware attack last week.

“The attack is causing a temporary disruption to some of our computer systems and services,” the school reported on Facebook last Friday afternoon.

The district’s web page remains down.

The Friday posting said the district is working with third party forensic specialists hired last Thursday 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.”

The first public sign of a problem surfaced last Wednesday when school officials told students that schools would be delayed in opening by two hours on Thursday.

Schools are an increasingly common target for hackers. At a White House summit on schools and cybersecurity last August, the deputy national security advisor for cyber, Anne Neuberger, said that schools in Arizona, California, Washington, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Michigan were among the close to 50 districts hit by cyber attacks by that point last year.

Related:

• Schools Look to Improve Cybersecurity, but Many Vulnerable to Ransomware
• White House Holds First-Ever Summit on Ransomware Crisis Plaguing Public Schools
• Connecticut School District Has Recouped Half of $6 Million Lost in Cyber Attack

Topics Cyber Education K-12