Schools across the U.S. remain fertile targets for hackers, with a slate of K-12 entities contending with cyberattacks and data thefts following the holiday season.
Since the start of the year, a handful of schools have reported data breaches including Butte School District in Montana, Edmonds School District in Washington, Fullerton Joint Union High School District and Glendale Unified School District in California.
Other school districts, like Ohio's Groveport Madison Schools, are in the process of recovering from ransomware incidents.
Officials at the school district told Recorded Future News that it took them about a month to restore their systems following a ransomware attack discovered on December 5.
The school district serves about 6,000 students in Franklin County, Ohio.
Superintendent Jamie Grube said they were warned of the attack by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
CISA told them to shut down all internet access but the ransomware gang was able to cause damage to several Windows devices, security cameras and printers.
As schools become increasingly connected to cloud-based platforms, cybersecurity researchers continue to find vulnerabilities in the popular software they use for a variety of tasks.
Earlier this month, vpnMentor cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered millions of records left exposed by school security company Raptor Technologies.
Fowler said he was able to see school incident response plans, school layouts as well as documents on malfunctioning cameras or physical security gaps.
The exposed database also had troves of information on background check systems, at-risk students, emergency drills and more.
Lawyers are now seeking out people who may have had their information exposed and the Washington, D.C. public school system began notifying parents that Raptor Technologies has informed them of student information exposed as part of the situation.
Jonathan has worked across the globe as a journalist since 2014.
Before moving back to New York City, he worked for news outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia.
He previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublic.
This Cyber News was published on therecord.media. Publication date: Sun, 28 Jan 2024 22:14:04 +0000