The students from Hartford were going to get back to school very soon but a random ransomware attack has caused them to delay the schooling. A computer ransomware attack was reported in Hartford school. Over the weekend an outage was caused in the critical city systems due to the attack. A real-time information bus route system was infected by the attack. The attack was carried out on the servers of the school. The reopening of the school was to be addressed on Tuesday but it was postponed due to the attack. The attack has also affected the police and the fire systems of the city. Although, both of the departments were able to respond to calls for service.
The bus system which was affected during the attack serves around 4000 students who take the bus to go to the school. The software system was severely attacked. Metro Hartford Information Services is currently working to restore the systems which were impacted during the attack. The school system on Tuesday afternoon addressed the situation to the parents. They clearly stated that the school will be starting on Wednesday. First, the students of fifth grade, seventh grade and ninth grade will be starting this school. The remaining classes will be starting from the next two days.
The number of ransomware attacks has been increasing since the last year. In the year 2019 at least 89 educational systems were impacted by these attacks alone in the US. 113 state and municipal governments and agencies were also impacted by the attack. As per the experts, it is said that they can do nothing to stop the attacks on their systems. The attackers actively look for vulnerabilities in the state’s systems. The city has also spent between $400,000 and $500,000 recently on the new cybersecurity software. It will help detect malicious activity.