Ransomware Attack on Stonington Schools
As recently as September of 2021, the chain of Stonington Public Schools fell victim to a vicious ransomware attack. The officials at the schools sent out messages to the community stating that investigation is underway and that all precautionary steps are being taken to save the community from any harm.
The school administration responded quickly as soon as the breach was discovered. The immediate action was to isolate the school’s network from the internet. This ensured that the school remained safe from any further attacks and damage.
In spite of the viciousness of the attack, the school’s student data stored on PowerSchool remained safe and unaffected. A sign that at least some groundwork had been done to provide security from attacks.
A statement released by the school authorities informed the community about the incident and the response initiated by the school:
“Upon discovery of the ransomware incident, District technology staff worked quickly to designate a team of internal IT professionals to respond to this incident. The District has further engaged third-party breach investigation, mitigation, and response experts. While the investigation of the incident is currently ongoing, we do know that student data on PowerSchool was not breached or affected in any way by this incident. Once more is known, we will update the community.”
The school administration has also offered two years’ of mitigation services to those who were affected by the breach. In a letter sent to those impacted by this attack, the district officials stated:
“We are writing to inform you that the Stonington School District…was recently the victim of a cyber attack, which may have affected some personal information about the records that the District maintains as a result of your current or former employment with the District, or status as a named dependent of a current employee of the District.
“Based upon our investigation, we have determined that the cyber attackers may have gained access to information stored on the two affected file servers. The affected files included certain historical employee data…. which may have included the following information about you: name, date of birth, mailing address, telephone number, Social Security Number, health insurance identification number, and wage and income tax information. Our investigation determined that our payroll system was not affected by the incident.”
With this assurance the school’s administration was able to restore confidence in the community and continue its routine academic activity.
