One of the United States’ biggest school districts, Los Angeles Unified, revealed that a ransomware attack struck its information technology systems last week.
LAUSD is the second home for over 600 thousand students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Moreover, the school district also accommodates Los Angeles’s smaller municipalities and several Los Angeles County unincorporated sectors.
The affected school district in LA first disclosed the districtwide technical anomaly after discovering that the threat actors breached and disrupted its systems, especially the email servers. After hours of threat analysis, LAUSD’s security team confirmed that it was a ransomware campaign and classified it as criminal.
LAUSD immediately reported the incident and is working with federal agencies and law enforcement as part of an ongoing response, investigation, and solution. The district requests the authorities to locate the significant resources to assess, protect, and advise. Further, the school also wanted to have a plan for mitigation protocols in case a similar event happened.
LAUSD remained operational despite the ransomware attack.
The district says schools will still let their students come while working to recover and restore the impacted servers even though the ransomware attack disrupted their infrastructure.
However, the district office still advised everyone that there will be expected delays that affect some services.
In addition, Los Angeles Unified clarified that they do not expect major technical issues that will obstruct them from providing transportation, instruction, and food. However, their team may still delay or alter business operations.
Based on the school district’s initial analysis of their systems, employee payroll and healthcare are not affected by the cybercriminal incident. The emergency mechanism and safety placed on their schools were also not impacted by threat actors.
LAUSD added that staffing and instruction plus payroll processing would be completed without delays.
November last year, the United States Department of Homeland Security and Department of Education were encouraged by law enforcement agencies to fortify their cybersecurity protection at K-12 schools all over the country to be on par with several types of cyberattacks.
