Cyber Crooks Shut Down Some US, UK Schools

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Cybercriminals closed some schools in America and Britain this week, preventing kindergarteners in Washington state from attending their first-ever school day and shutting down all internet-based systems for Biggin Hill-area students in England for the next three weeks.

On Sunday, Highline Public Schools, a Seattle-area school district that serves more than 17,000 students from pre-K through high school, alerted its parents and students that all schools, along with activities, athletics and meetings planned for Monday, had been canceled.

"We have detected unauthorized activity on our technology systems and have taken immediate action to isolate critical systems," according to a notice posted on the district's website.

Upon finding the digital intruders on the network, the district called in third-party infosec experts, along with US federal and state law enforcement, to help restore the systems, we're told.

[...] No criminal group has claimed responsibility for the Highline breach, though the school closures follow a ransomware infection that snarled traffic at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in late August.

[...] Meanwhile, in the UK, Charles Darwin School sent home a letter with all of its students on September 6, telling parents and caregivers that the "IT issues" it had been experiencing were "worse than hoped." In fact, they were due to a ransomware attack.

Charles Darwin has 1,320 secondary and sixth-form students in Bromley, England.

The Biggin Hill school would be closed between September 9 and September 11 as IT admins wiped all of the staff devices and teachers reorganized all of their lessons, according to headteacher Aston Smith.

Internet, email, and other school systems will be knocked out for an estimated three weeks, he added.

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