Ransomware attack takes Oxford School District captive

Published 5:05 pm Monday, February 8, 2016

The Oxford School District (OSD) is a victim of a criminal crypto-ransomware attack by an unknown hacker, which began early Sunday morning. As a precautionary measure, the Oxford School District shut down all district servers and is presently working to resolve the situation. At this time, no personal information or other critical data was compromised.

“Today instruction has been disrupted because of the malware situation,” said OSD Superintendent Brian Harvey. “We hope to have the Internet up and running Tuesday morning so that instruction can continue for our students and teachers.”

The cyberattack has not only interfered with classroom instruction, but has locked out students, teachers, and administrators from gaining access to computer programs, files and other network-related services. School district computer programs which are unaccessible at this time are PowerSchool, Schoology, district and school websites, and Internet connectivity on school campuses.