Coweta County School System became the latest in a string of ransomware attacks targeting educational institutions. As reported by FOX 5 Atlanta, the school district canceled SAT testing at three high schools over the weekend following an unauthorized intrusion detected on Friday evening last week. The school system has urgently moved to work with cybersecurity partners and federal authorities to investigate the breach which has halted access to their internal network.
While the attack has promised not to disrupt classes, it will likely slow to greatly affect work processes for staff and teachers. The Coweta County School System has communicated that there's no current evidence suggesting the compromise of student or employee personal information. However, they remain vigilant as cybersecurity experts advise that ransomware incidents are increasing in frequency and can put money and identity at significant risk. Rick Hudson of Critical Path Security told FOX 5 Atlanta, "Anything from somebody trying to obtain a credit card in your name, changing addresses on where social security checks may be mailed to, and other things like that ... up to full-blown identity theft."
This incident closely follows a similar cyber attack on Cobb County in March, which compromised personal data including driver's licenses and social security cards. The Russian-speaking hacker group "Qilin" claimed responsibility for the attack, according to Rick Hudson, who shared details in an interview with Atlanta News First. Hudson's team at Critical Path Security uncovered the group's announcement that they were set to publish 400,000 documents unless a ransom was paid, threatening further exposure within two days of the attack.
Despite the severity of such breaches, Cobb County remained firm in its stance against capitulating to cybercriminal demands, rejecting the ransom proposal. "The official stance from the federal government and everybody is we don’t deal with terrorists. We don’t deal with threat actors. We don’t pay them," stated Jared Haviland, an information security officer with Critical Path Security, in a perspective also shared by the Coweta County School System. Both entities are enduring to maintain operations and protect stakeholders from cyber threats. A spokesperson from Cobb County conveyed their commitment to network security and ongoing vigilance to provide credit monitoring and identity theft protection if individuals' personal information are confirmed at risk. This commitment was detailed in the statement given to Atlanta News First: "If we determine that specific personal information is at risk, Cobb County will provide those individuals with credit monitoring and identity theft protection," the spokesperson affirmed.
Coweta County's resolve mirrors that of Cobb County, demonstrating a broader commitment within the region to resist empowering those who wish to profit from disrupting public systems and compromising private data. As both school and county officials continue to manage these cybersecurity crises, the communities affected are reminded of the ongoing necessity for vigilance in the cyber sphere and the protection of their digital footprints.
