LAUSD Hit With Ransomware Attack Over Holiday Weekend

LAUSD Hit With Ransomware Attack Over Holiday Weekend

LAUSD hit with ransomware attack
Courtesy of Los Angeles Unified School District

Over the Labor Day weekend, one of the United States’ largest school districts was hit by a cyberattack. LAUSD serves more than 600,000 students, between kindergarten and 12th grade, and employs more than 26,000 teachers at over 1,000 schools.

Los Angeles Unified School District has reported that it was hit by a cyber attack over the long weekend and is working with the FBI to investigate the crime. The attack was discovered around 10:30 pm on Saturday when staff detected unusual activity. The staff was then forced to shut down all of their systems and check each one for signs of an attack.

The attack caused significant disruption to LAUSD infrastructure but they have since resumed classes. Ongoing disruptions include access to email, computer systems, and applications. Since the attack, all employees and students were forced to change their passwords to safeguard the system from an additional attack.

Based on a Preliminary analysis of business systems, LAUSD has stated that employee healthcare and payroll were not impacted. They have also assured that the incident has not affected safety and emergency mechanisms in place at schools. They are still investigating whether any data was stolen during the attack.