The Clark County School District (CCSD) in Las Vegas reopened for individual learning on August 24th. The attack was reported by hackers three days after it was first reported by the Street Journal.
On the morning of 27 August, some computer systems were infected with a virus from CCSD that blocked access to certain files, according to the statement. The Wall Street Journal reports that officials refused to pay a ransom in exchange for unlocking district computer servers after hackers published documents with social security numbers, student grades and other private information from CCSD students and staff.
According to CCSD, the school district currently serves more than 320,000 students in Clark County, Nevada.
The CCSD did not specify whether the intelligence was leaked but acknowledged that “some of the current and former employee’s information has been accessed or obtained by an unauthorized actor.”
The district said it has received “no reports of actual or attempted misuse of the affected information” and is issuing notices to students and staff with extreme caution.
The school district immediately notified law enforcement, which involved third-party forensic investigators to investigate the incident, the statement said. Investigators concluded that CCSD was the victim of a criminal rinsomware attack.
The school district is working to restore all systems to secure full functionality, the statement said.
CCSD is not the only district to fall victim to cybertech in the new year.
Hartford Public Schools in Connecticut suspended individual class and online online education early in the school year, citing a ransomware virus that disrupted systems in the network infrastructure.
And there were dozens of attacks in the early days of the school year in the Miami-Dade School District.
The teenager’s computer and gaming system were taking evidence, said Edwin Lopez, police chief of the Miami-Dead School, who said it was unclear if the student would work alone.
Officials say they believe there are other attackers as well. Some of the IP addresses involved in the attack were found in Russia, Ukraine, China and Iraq, said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. It is not clear whether there are physical assailants in those countries, but school officials said they are working with international authorities in their investigation.
CNN’s Christina Maxoris and Artemis Mushtagian contributed to this report.
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