Cyber Attack Shutters Seattle-Area School District for 2nd Day

Highline School District's 17,500 students will be out of class again Tuesday, following a massive cyber-attack over the weekend.

   The school announced Sunday classes were canceled Monday

Highline School District is centered in Burien, WA, but also draws students from Des Moines, small portions of Kent, Tukwila, SeaTac, and a few from Seattle.  Its 43 schools were closed Monday because of what officials said was a massive cyberattack.

The high schools affected included Highline, Evergreen, Mt. Rainier, and Tyee.

According to Geekwire:

"On Sunday, Highline Public Schools announced that it had “detected unauthorized activity on our technology systems and have taken immediate action to isolate critical systems.”

The breach forced the 17,500-student district to cancel classes on Monday, which would have been only the fourth day of school for most kids, and the first for Highline’s kindergartners."

Experts say since 2019, attacks on educational systems have increased significantly, especially because some of them have older, less sophisticated or protected digital systems. Security expert Doug Levin, the founder of the K-12 Security Information eXchange, says most of these assaults come from overseas hackers.

His organization has identified at least 325 ransomware attacks on US schools between April 2016, and November 2022, but the problem is growing.

According to Geekwire and Levin:

"Educational institutions use a lot of technology but don’t have the resources, expertise or mandate to put strong cybersecurity protections in place. At the same time, they hold large amounts of valuable and sensitive information, and their operations are essential, creating significant problems in a shutdown."

It's usually about money, trying to extort funds from school districts by hacking and holding their data for 'ransom,' hence, ransomware.

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According to officials, the biggest cyberattack in WA state against a school district came in 2019 when the Northshore School District |(Bothell, Woodinville, Kenmore) came under attack, and it took nearly three weeks to restore their systems.