Hardenhuish School provided an update on the cyberattack after hackers demanded a ransom.
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A school in Wiltshire whose IT network was targeted by hackers demanding ransom has revealed that the disruption is still ongoing.
Hardenhuish School in Chippenham discovered that hackers had taken control of their IT systems last weekend and were demanding a ransom to restore the network.
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The school's website remains down at the time of writing, while the local server, internet access, WiFi, printers and internal phone systems have also been compromised.
A Hardenhuish spokesperson confirmed that the cyberattack is an ongoing situation and that the school has hired a team of IT specialists to investigate it.
He said: “Hardenhuish School is currently experiencing disruption due to a cyber incident which has affected our IT network.”
“As soon as we became aware of the incident, we assigned a team of third-party IT specialists to safely restore our systems and investigate the situation.”
“Our priority is to return to normal operation as soon as possible. As investigations continue, we are unable to comment further on the nature of the incident.”
The school also tried to reassure parents that the children's education would not be disrupted .
"The learning and safety of our students is our absolute priority and we have worked with staff to rapidly implement emergency plans to ensure minimal disruption while we get our systems back up and running," a school spokesperson said.
“We are keeping our students, parents and staff informed.”
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The school contacted the parents of its 1,623 students about the issue and informed them of the breach via text message.
Hardenhuish sent a message to all parents saying they were “aware that Hardenhuish School had been targeted by a hacker who had installed ransomware on local servers.”
Simply put, this means that someone outside the school has gained access and control of the school's computer network and is demanding money to restore it.
As far as we can tell at this time, no personal data has been compromised - however, our forensic experts are in the early stages of investigation .
"We hope to have at least some of our processes and systems back up and running by early next week and will update you as soon as we have more information on the situation."
Source of information: gazetteandherald.co.uk
