17 September 20, 15:14
Quote:The attack on the Newhall District in Valencia is part of a wave of ransomware attacks on the education sector, which shows no sign of dissipating.
As students head back to the classroom, the spate of ransomware attacks against schools is continuing. The latest is a strike against a California school district that closed down remote learning for 6,000 elementary school students, according to city officials.
The cyberattack, against the Newhall School District in Valencia, affected all distance learning across 10 different grade schools, Newhall Superintendent Jeff Pelzel told the Los Angeles Times. He said the cybercriminals struck overnight Sunday into Monday morning, and that he noticed something awry after getting consistent error messages when trying to access Outlook and email. Shortly after, it became apparent that the district had been victimized by malware.
Interestingly, there has been no extortion demand yet, Pelzel told the outlet. But meanwhile, Newhall’s servers have been shut down while a forensic investigation plays out, and the kids are back to using pencil and paper to work on take-home assignments.
The news comes as officials issue warnings on increased ransomware attacks in the education sector, largely tied to remote learning and the increased use of technology for instruction – which widens the attack surface. The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) for instance flagged an uptick of attacks against grammar schools, colleges and universities in that country, warning that vulnerable remote desktop protocol (RDP), unpatched software and hardware being used by remote learners, and successful phishing emails are all common attack vectors.
Read more: https://threatpost.com/california-elemen...re/159319/