This week, schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania, experienced a ransomware attack resulting in IT outages. The Scranton School District is working with third-party forensic specialists to investigate the security breach and restore impacted systems.
The attack caused temporary disruptions to some of the computer systems and services, prompting the district to delay classes by two hours on Thursday. Students completed their tasks using pencil and paper instead of Chromebooks on Friday.
“We are working diligently with third-party forensic specialists, that we engaged last evening, to investigate the source of this incident, confirm its impact on our systems, and to restore full functionality to the system as soon as possible,” reads a post published by the Scranton School District on Facebook.
According to acting Superintendent Patrick Laffey, the district ordered staff not to use any electronic devices and uninstalled any school-related apps from their mobile devices.
The Scranton School District is a large, urban school district located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the Wyoming Valley region. The school district includes 15 schools and serves more than 9,000 students.
“We are working diligently to investigate this matter with the assistance of third-party forensic specialists and intend to restore full functionality to our affected systems as quickly and securely as possible,” Laffey said in a statement. “We have significant resources devoted to this process, and our work to resolve this issue is ongoing.”
The schools normally operated on Friday, but students completed their tasks using pencil and paper instead of their Chromebooks.
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