Two public schools in Michigan hit by a ransomware attack

Public schools in two Michigan counties were forced to halt their activities, including the lessons, after a ransomware attack.  

Public schools in Jackson and Hillsdale counties, Michigan, reopen after a closure of two days caused by a ransomware attack that hit its systems.

The public schools started experiencing a systems outage affecting critical operating systems on Monday, the outage occurred because they were victims of a ransomware attack detected over the weekend.

Jackson County Intermediate School District Superintendent Kevin Oxley announced that the systems were taken offline to contain the damage. 

The schools notified law enforcement and engaged external cybersecurity advisors to investigate the incident and receive help in restoring its systems in a secure way.

As a precautionary measure, the schools asked everyone to refrain from using any school-issued devices.

“Thanks to the around-the-clock work by our tech team and cybersecurity experts, we are prepared to welcome students back to school tomorrow, Thursday, November 17, 2022.” reads the announcement from the Jackson County Intermediate School District.

“Our number one priority was to get kids back in school and we’re thrilled to be able to do that tomorrow. While our restoration efforts continue, we prioritized bringing essential systems back online in order to allow us to safely resume operations and reopen school buildings across Jackson and Hillsdale counties. However, students will continue to have limited access to several technology resources when they return tomorrow, as our teams continue to work on restoring additional systems.”

At this time, the attack has yet to be claimed by any cybercrime group.

School districts are privileged targets of ransomware gangs, in September one of the US largest School districts, the Los Angeles Unified School District, suffered a ransomware attack.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Public schools)

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