[BreachExchange] Athens ISD computers hacked; district will pay $50K cryptocurrency ransom

[Destry Winant]

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/athens-isd-computers-hacked-50k-cryptocurrency-ransom/287-d2fd74b5-7734-4dd5-86b4-59960b959a21

ATHENS, Texas — Athens ISD is delaying its school start date from Aug.
3 to Aug. 10, but not because of COVID-19. A news release Wednesday
said the school district was the victim of a ransomware attack that
"wreaked havoc" on the district's computers.

The ransomware attack encrypted all of the data stored on district
servers, including "a few hundred" computers and multiple data
backups, according to the release. As a result, school officials have
no way of accessing student grades, class assignments, student
schedules or teacher communications.

School officials said they do not believe any personal data was stolen.

“The first thing we want to do is ensure our staff and student
families that, to the best of our knowledge, no personal data has been
compromised,” Athens ISD superintendent Janie Sims said in the
release. “Whoever is behind this attack has not taken the information;
they have encrypted it so that we have no access unless we meet their
ransom demand.”

The school board voted Wednesday to pay a $50,000 ransom to the
hackers, a sum that is covered under the cyberattack policy in the
district's insurance, the release said. The ransom will be paid using
a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin. The district said its IT employees are
also working hard to fix the problem.

“We can’t afford to not pay it,” school board president Alicea Elliott
said in the news release. “It would take us months to rebuild all that
data so that we could start school.”

Sims said that similar attacks have happened in other districts across
East Texas, and reiterated in the news release that there was nothing
more the district could have done to be prepared for an attack like
this.

Sims will tell parents no later than August 6, if the school start
date will have to be pushed out another week.