Forsyth Public Schools, located in Montana was the victim of a major hack over the weekend. \u00a0They are uncertain when the hack began, but was identified on Saturday, April 1, 2017. \u00a0According to Last Best News<\/a>, the school received three emails prior to the attack, saying they had to pay a ransom demand, or the hackers would overrun their servers and take their data.<\/p>\n This is not your typical ransomware attack. \u00a0In most instances, the ransomware strikes, locking the victim’s data, then a ransom demand is made. \u00a0In this case, it was backwards. \u00a0According to the school’s superintendent, Dinny Bennet, the student management systems have been restored, and no student data was lost. \u00a0However, the teachers were not so lucky. \u00a0Bennet reports<\/a>,<\/p>\n “Most of their information\u2014lesson plans, schedules and the like\u2014was in the form of publicly available formats\u00a0like Word and PowerPoint and stored on the district\u2019s server. The district\u2019s IT person is still working to recover the teachers\u2019 files, so there\u2019s still hope, but not that much.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The timing of the attack was impeccable. \u00a0The quarter just ended, so final grades were expected to go out on April 4, 2017. \u00a0That has since been delayed a day due to the ransomware attack.<\/p>\n To see a full list of ransomware attacks that have taken place in 2017, you can click here<\/a>. We have also created a ransomware map, see below, of the ransomware attacks that have taken place in the U.S.Other Ransomware Attacks<\/h4>\n
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