Schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania, are dealing with a ransomware attack, the district confirmed in a Friday message to students.
On Facebook, the Scranton School District warned that it is dealing with widespread technology outages as a result of the attack.
The school district - which serves about 10,000 students across 15 different schools - first notified students of issues on Thursday, when it told students to arrive at school two hours later than usual.
Acting Superintendent Patrick Laffey confirmed the ransomware attack in an interview with The Times-Tribune.
Students told the newspaper that they were forced to do assignments with paper and pencil as opposed to their usual Chromebooks.
Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow, who tracks ransomware attacks against local governments and schools, said the attack on Scranton is at least the 21st confirmed ransomware attack against a K-12 school district in 2024.
Schools in New Jersey and other states have already been forced to cancel classes in January after a cyberattack, and dozens of schools reported data theft earlier this year from holiday-season attacks.
Six California school districts announced this week that they were forced to pay thousands to resolve incidents over the last three years.
Last year, Emsisoft tracked at least 108 ransomware attacks on K-12 school districts.
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: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 21:30:34 +0000