Baltimore County Schools won praise for restarting student learning after last month’s cyber attack. But behind the scenes, the system is still reeling from the assault, including its devastating impact on students’ educational records.
Some student records are “presumed completely unrecoverable,” a Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) employee with information about the attack’s impact told
The Brew.
“SIS [the Student Information System] is toast,” said the employee, who spoke under the condition of anonymity.
The system’s backup may have been saved on the same infected server, so that both were compromised by the malware attackers, the source said. The catastrophic loss of SIS is what is slowing the school district’s recovery, multiple sources said.
English December 18, 2020 08:43 AM
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In late November 2020, hackers took over the Baltimore County Public Schools system in Maryland and forced the nation’s 25th largest school district to shut down for three days. But what happened to the public school system in Baltimore was not an isolated case, as Valentina Vasileva reports in this story, narrated by Anna Rice.
Videographer: Aleksandr Bergan
There has been an uptick of ransomware attacks in which cybercriminals have targeted public schools throughout the United States – from Hartford, Connecticut, to Huntsville, Alabama – since the 2020-21 school year began. Federal cybersecurity officials say the attacks – which involve things that range from the theft of sensitive student data to the disruption of online classes – are expected to continue. As a researcher who specializes in cybercrime and cybersecurity, I know that public schools represent easy and attractive targets for cybercriminals.
Teachers in Baltimore County Public Schools knew something was wrong late in the day on Nov. 24 when they began to experience trouble entering grades into the school district’s computer system. Around the same time, the video for a meeting of the district’s school board abruptly cut off.
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