Digital Smarts - Hackers Target Districts and Disrupt Classes

Large, wealthy school districts in the suburbs are most likely to be hit by hackers, an analysis by the Government Accountability Office finds, and at least 289 US districts are reporting cyberincidents this year, says Doug Levin of consulting firm EdTech Strategies. Student academic records were most commonly compromised, including assessment scores and special education records. Coming in second were records with personally identifiable information, such as student Social Security numbers, according to the analysis of data from July 2016 to May 2020. The trend is also seen in some smaller districts, such as the 6,000-student Newhall School District in California, where a ransomware attack in September halted virtual instruction for five days and forced a network reboot.