On Tuesday, Sept. 8 - the day students were scheduled to start the new academic year - Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said there is no time frame for when the school year will begin for the city’s public school district.
There be no in-person or online classes until the city gets the ransomware issue cleared up, the mayor said.
There are about 20,000 students and 3,000 staff in the Hartford School District.
Bronin said the cyber attack was more aggressive than what Hartford officials typically face. He said he does not believe any personal information was stolen in the attack.
More than 200 of the city’s 300 servers were affected by the ransomware. Student devices were not harmed in the attack because they are connected to a cloud-based system.
Ransomware is a form of “malware,” malevolent software. It encrypts the victim’s files so that they are no longer accessible to the original owner. Typically, the victim is pressured to pay a high price to remove the ransomware and get his information back.
The Hartford ransomware attack is being investigated at the local, state, and federal levels.
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