Canadian public school board forced to suspend online classes following a cyber attack

The Durham District School Board (DDSB), one of Canada’s largest public school boards, has suffered a cyber attack that has crippled daily operations and affected phone and e-mail services.

Located in the province of Ontario, Canada, DDSB employs over 7,000 teaching and educational services staff and boasts more than 74,000 day students across 136 elementary and secondary schools in the eastern Toronto exurbs.

In an update posted on its website on November 27, the Board said that it identified a cyber attack on November 25 and immediately took steps to secure its internal network. The school district has notified law enforcement authorities about the security incident and is working with them to understand the full impact of the cyber attack.

While in-person schools remained open, DDSB said that its phone and e-mail services are not working and schools may not have access to emergency contact information. As a result, DDSB has requested all guardians to send temporary emergency contact information with their children to school. 

 

DDSB also said that most of its students’ Chromebook weren’t operational and all “DDSB@Home classes and literacy tests” are cancelled and won’t be resumed until further notice.

“We continue to work with external consultants to help determine the scope and extent of the cyber incident that has impacted the Durham District School Board (DDSB) network. We ask for your patience as this investigation is complex and will take time to complete,” DDSB explained.

Targeting educational institutions is a common tactic of threat actors. Earlier this month, the Cincinnati State Technical and Community College suffered a cyber attack that compromised the functioning of multiple systems and online services.

Cincinnati State College started informing its 10,000 students and about 1,000 staff members that it suffered a significant cyber attack that impacted online services and multiple internal IT systems. The college said that the restoration of daily operations could take some time.

According to the institution’s latest update, several systems like blackboard, on-campus email, on-campus Internet, Middletown internet access, guest WiFi, password resetting via Technology Helpdesk and classroom computers have been restored.

However, systems like voicemail, online application and online registration, SurgeCard creation, self-services, and online financial aid services, network printing, VPN, eForms, admission application are a few of the other services that are yet to be restored.

The Vice Society gang was also responsible for a major ransomware attack on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest school District in the U.S. with more than 640,000 students and more than 26,000 teachers at over 1,000 schools. After the school district refused to pay a ransom, the ransomware listed LAUSD on their data leak site and began leaking stolen data.