Spartanburg, SC (WSPA) – It’s a ransomware scare that has Spartanburg District One officials double checking their computer systems and connections.
The school’s computer systems are up and running now, but were shut down for two days last week. That shut-down was part of a process to keep information safe.
A computer system alert in Spartanburg School District One, described as ransomware, put the I.T. team on high alert.
“Our fire wall identified irregular activity last week and it alerted us. So that gave us the opportunity to put protocols into place,” Spartanburg District One Chief Communications Officer Sandra Williams said.
Those protocols led them to shut down their servers in order to keep their data secure.
“Our firewalls and our antivirus systems did what they were designed to do, so there was no breach of data.” Williams said.
Williams said desktops and laptops were not hacked, and iPads the students use were not compromised.
“We do have one to one devices for a lot of our students and this will not impact their ability to be able to use their devices or take those devices home.” Willims said.
With more than 10 schools in the district housing more than 5200 students and nearly 600 faculty and staff, sophisticated phishing scams could trip up anybody.
“We’re going to reiterate the importance of not clicking on links that say, you know, you’ve won a cruise,” Williams said.
Ransomware scams are designed to infiltrate an organizations computer systems and hold their information hostage until a fee or ransom is paid, District one didn’t loose anything.
“Because our firewall detected the activity so early in the process, we had no communication with the perpetrators of the ransomware. So, there was not a situation were we had to pay anything.” Williams said.
Spartanburg District one says they’re reviewing and reinforcing current security measures in order to keep their system safe.
The district has been working diligently with cybersecurity experts to determine the origin of the ransomware
