The Springfield School District in Massachusetts was hit by a ransomware attack that caused schools to close, and investigations into the incident are currently underway
Springfield is the third largest school district in Massachusetts with more than 25,000 students, 4,500 employees, and over 60 schools. Due to the COVID-19, the school district implemented a remote learning model and has scheduled a transition to hybrid learning for late October.
The school district announced via Facebook, Twitter and calls to parents that schools were closed due to “issues” on its network. Shortly after the initial alerts, parents and students were informed that the district had been hit by ransomware and that school devices would have to be shut down. The attack was later confirmed by Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and Superintendent Daniel Warwick, who announced the suspension of remote learning.
Specifically, as reported by BleepingComputer, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and Superintendent Daniel Warwick announced yesterday that the Springfield School District has temporarily suspended remote learning due to potential threats to the network .
According to a statement, the Springfield District has identified a potential threat to its IT network. To ensure the district can effectively mitigate the potential security incident and restore access to all software and services as quickly as possible, remote learning activities were canceled yesterday. It is expected that the risk will be mitigated so that remote learning can continue, the statement said.
A cybersecurity source told BleepingComputer that the Springfield School District was hit by a ransomware attack that was discovered yesterday morning. To prevent the attack from spreading, the school district shut down all systems, leading to the closure of schools.
It is worth noting that similar incidents have occurred in other school districts in the US. Specifically, on September 8, the Hartford School District in Connecticut was hit by a ransomware attack, which resulted in the postponement of the opening of schools in the district. For Hartford, the ransomware attack only delayed the opening of schools by one day.
In the case of Springfield, however, the delay can be longer, depending on the number of devices that have been encrypted during the ransomware attack, and also the time required to restore them.
