Hardenhuish School in Chippenham hit by a ransomware attack

Hardenhuish School, a large mixed secondary school and sixth form in Chippenham, has confirmed it has been the victim of a ransomware attack, disrupting the operations of its IT network, website, local server, WiFi, printers, and internal telephone systems.

According to reports, Hardenhuish School discovered last weekend that hackers took control of their IT systems and demanded a ransom for access to be restored. While the hacking continues, the school has gone back to using paper registers.

According to a school spokesperson, as soon as the school learned of the incident, it appointed a team of third-party IT specialists to safely restore our systems and investigate.

The school also attempted to reassure parents that the disruption to students’ education was minimal. The school contacted the parents of their 1,623 students and informed them of the hack via text message. Hardenhuish School informed all parents that the school had been targeted by a hacker who had installed ransomware on the local servers.

Notably, several schools and universities were targeted in separate attacks in January, with hackers leaking highly confidential documents from 14 schools online. Hardenhuish School, on the other hand, does not appear to have suffered the same level of data loss.