Schools Face A New Threat In The Pandemic: Ransomware
An IT worker for the Haverhill schools spends hours daily wiping district computers and whiteboards to free them from malware installed during a cyber attack this spring. (Meg Woolhouse/GBH)
Doug Russell, the IT director for the city of Haverhill, was sleepless in the wee hours of April 8, which turned out to be fortunate. He caught an alert on his phone when the school district’s computer system suddenly crashed.
A former firefighter, he hopped in his red pickup to check out the district servers at City Hall. “We got in, we saw that, we realized what it was and we were like, ‘Whoa,'” Russell said.
A ransomware demand popped up on a screen. There was no skull and crossbones: in very businesslike terms, the cyber attackers said they would unencrypt the schools’ computers if a payment was made.
Bad actors in cyberspace have targeted public schools during the pandemic. The technology that has allowed so many students to continue their education at home after schools closed is also more susceptible to pitfalls like ransomware attacks. Federal officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency say that problem, once the scourge of hospitals, municipal governments and police operations, is reaching new heights in schools.