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Jonathan GreigApril 10th, 2023
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MINNESOTA SCHOOL DISTRICT CANCELS CLASSES FOR 42 SCHOOLS AFTER ALLEGED
CYBERATTACK

A public school system in Rochester, Minnesota announced this weekend that it
was canceling classes on Monday for all 42 schools it operates after it was hit
by a suspected cyberattack that began late last week.

On Friday, Rochester Public Schools released a message explaining that it
“discovered irregular activity on its network” and needed to “shut down
district-wide internet connection to review and address the issue.” Staff
members and students were unable to access their Google accounts, and the phones
at all school district buildings were not operating.

The incident comes weeks after the school district in Minneapolis was hit with a
ransomware attack that exposed troves of sensitive student information. It’s not
yet clear if the incidents are related.

Rochester Public School District serves 17,474 students in southeast Minnesota.
By Saturday, the district released an update saying classes would be canceled
because teachers and administrators needed to gather and plan on how to operate
school “with no or reduced access to technology systems starting on Tuesday,
April 11.”

The district’s IT department was forced to shut down the network and nearly all
of the school's core technology systems.

“Because it would be very difficult to provide students with instruction and
school services without access to the Internet and core systems, we are going to
ask students not to report to school on Monday, April 10,” the district said.

Staff will come in on Monday for an early morning meeting but will be given the
chance to to work from home because internet and other systems are not
operating. Sports and other extracurricular activities will operate as usual on
Monday and other services will be available for parents in need, the district
said.

“We regret the impact that not having students report on Monday will have on our
families and we also regret needing to share this information during what for
many of our families is a holiday weekend and at the end of spring break”
district officials said.

The incident comes about one month after a ransomware group posted data from
Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) to the dark web. Education news outlet The 74
reported that the sample of data leaked by the Medusa ransomware group from MPS
included records related to “student sexual violence allegations, district
finances, student discipline, special education, civil rights investigations,
student maltreatment and sex offender notifications.”

The incident heightened concerns about the massive amount of data leaked onto
the dark web when schools refuse to pay ransoms following cyberattacks.

The mental health records of thousands of Los Angeles K-12 students were found
leaked across the internet in recent weeks after an attack last year by the Vice
Society ransomware group.

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Tags
 * Schools
 * Minneapolis Public Schools
 * cyberattack


JONATHAN GREIG



Jonathan Greig is a Breaking News Reporter at Recorded Future News. Jonathan has
worked across the globe as a journalist since 2014. Before moving back to New
York City, he worked for news outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia. He
previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublic.

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