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Another day, another online attack.
Last week, the Wyoming Area School Board revealed that the district was the victim of ransomware attack this summer that had locked staff out of the computers. As staff writer Mark Guydish pointed out, the district took about five weeks to recover and only regained control by Aug. 20. This cybercrime forced the district to delay the release of school bus schedules, posting them about a week before classes start. This comes a few months after a cyberattack hit Luzerne County government during Memorial Day weekend. Recovery has been slow, with many departments not being accessible for days and weeks. The ripple effect reached the school districts as the county’s real estate assessment database was down, and the county assessment office could not complete perform the steps needed to generate school tax bills on time. Residents received their tax bills last week, Some districts, like Wyoming Valley West, had to take out tax anticipation notes to cover potential cash flow problems due to the delay.
Luzerne County is just one of hundreds of U.S. cities that have been held hostage by cyber criminals. Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that a coordinated attack targets 22 cities in Texas in one day. Credit card payments could not be processed, and vital items such as birth and death certificates could not be accessed. Cities big and small have encountered such malware, from Keene, Texas, with a population of 6,000, to Baltimore.
Not only do attacks paralyze government operations, they can be financially crippling. In 2018 alone, FBI reported that hackers secured $3.6 million from victims, according to AP. In June, Riviera Beach City, Fla., officials paid $600,000 in ransom to regain control of the city’s computer system. Two Iranians were indicted last year on suspicion that they received more than $6 millions in payment following 200 ransomware attacks. The FBI advises governments, businesses and individuals to be proactive against ransomware and other cyber attacks. This includes training employees about the dangers of phishing scams through email, setting antivirus software to perform regular scanning and backing up data regularly. The bureau also warns victims not to pay a ransom as it is not guaranteed that the hijacked data will be accessible after payment. Instead, a sound backup data routine can prevent the need to pay an attack’s price.
Let’s hope that our local government, schools and other organizations can learn from these summer attacks and invest in protective technology, training and security.
— Times Leader