On Friday, a school in Ohio discovered that it had been hacked. Specifically, a malware infected the systems, so the school administration decided not to hold classes on Monday. What is surprising is that the attack came from a banking trojan. According to research, the malware that affected the school's systems is called Trickbot.
The attack took place last week but was discovered on Friday. Experts tried to restore the systems over the weekend but were unable to do so, resulting in the cancellation of Monday's classes.
The school principal told local media that they do not suspect students of infecting their systems and that one of the first computers affected was the computer of the employee who handles the school's finances.
TRICKBOT: One of the most common and dangerous attacks of the era
The FBI is involved in the investigation and is helping the school restore its systems. In March, the Department of Homeland Security warned of an increase in TrickBot attacks.
TrickBot was originally designed as a banking Trojan, which was used to steal credentials on banking portals. Later, however, it evolved into a malware that can serve many purposes. For example, TrickBot administrators can infect computers with their malware and then provide access (to the infected systems), for a fee, to other hackers who want to attack with other malware.
The Emotet banking trojan is an example of this. Many times, ransomware attacks have occurred immediately after systems were infected with Emotet, TrickBot, or both.
Infecting computers with Trojans is not a simple matter, as it can cause great damage to systems. Victims should act immediately to deal with the situation before other attacks by other malicious software occur. Usually, Trickbot administrators send spam emails to infect victims' computers.
Not much information has been released yet about what exactly happened to the school community's systems, but judging by the fact that classes were canceled, it's definitely something serious.
At first it seemed like only one computer was infected, but eventually eleven were infected. Within a short time, the entire network stopped working.
According to information, in addition to computers, the school's telephones and HVAC systems were also affected.
On Tuesday, classes resumed as normal, after the damage was repaired and the systems of 1,000 computers were restored.
