For the second time in a week, Houston County Schools in Alabama had to delay their school year’s opening due to a malware attack and the ongoing recovery. It has not been disclosed what type of malware attack they were hit with, but sounds like a ransomware attack based upon the details given.

Originally scheduled to start the school year on August 1st, a malware attack has taken down all of the computer and phone systems, making it difficult to get the school ready to open.

Due to this, the district had to delay the opening of the schools until August 12th. This has lost the district 7 days of school, which the state has decided not to force them to make up.

Local media reports that there are 4,000 computer systems that were affected and all of them have to be reimaged before they can get the network back up and running. Each system is expected to take approximately 30 minutes to restore.

The superintendent and high school principal has stated that they unsure what type of malware attack they are affected by, but know that they have not paid any money to the attackers. They also say that the state has not told them the details of the attack as well.

“We don’t know where this came from,” Ashford High School Principal Bubba Odom told WTVY in Alabama.”We have no clue. They don’t either. The bottom line is, it’s more on them than it is on us. We’ve just got to take care of the kids.”

In the mean time, teachers have started to make hard copy lessons as they can’t print anything. The biggest problem they state they are facing is the lack of access to their INow system, which is used to keep track of student information and their schedules.

Schools have been under siege

With the large payouts that ransomware attackers have been receiving from local government, attackers have been focusing on schools, which tend to have a lower budget, smaller security teams, and a large amount of personal data.

This makes them a soft target for malware distributors who are looking for easy access to a large network of computers that they can infiltrate.

Last month, Louisiana declared a state of emergency due to the wide spread ransomware attacks on school districts in the state. Over the course of three weeks, four schools districts in Louisiana were targeted by ransomware that took down computer systems and phone systems.

School districts are going to need to harden their systems and modify guidelines in order to make their networks safer. This includes restricting the types of attachments students can open, harden the entry points into their networks, and educate faculty on phishing.

More importantly, good backup plans must be in place with tested backups as they are the key to any ransomware defense.

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