Hackers take control of school cameras, locks, and HVAC, shutting down entire Idaho school district
District officials are refusing to comment on whether a ransom has been paid, calling the situation "delicate."
Image by Jerome School District
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- Jerome schools were shuttered for 2 days after hackers took control of key district systems.
- The attack affected cameras, electronic locks, heating, cooling, and network access.
- The district says attackers accessed student data and demanded an undisclosed ransom.
- Officials have not said whether they paid, and schools were expected to reopen Wednesday.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Ransomware attackers hacked an Idaho school district last weekend, taking control of school cameras, electronic locks, and heating systems – forcing district officials to shut down all schools earlier this week.
The district first became aware of the attack on October 17th after teachers began reporting issues with the network.
Saturday morning, we started getting some of our alerts from our system internally and some of our teachers really giving us some communication that something is wrong,said Brent Johnson, superintendent of Jerome School District.
Hackers compromise critical school safety systems
Located in the Magic Valley region of Idaho about two hours south of Boise, the state capital, the rural district serves about 4,000 students across eight K-12 schools, including five elementary schools.
Beyond infiltrating the networks and accessing student data, the attackers gained control of various internet-connected systems, forcing the district to cancel school for all students on Monday and Tuesday and reschedule parent-teacher conference night.
The hackers were said to have compromised school surveillance camera systems, electronic door locks, and the district’s heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.
Education officials did not say how the hackers broke into the network or what software the district uses to run its internet-connected systems.
Johnson described the compromised infrastructure as “essential” to the safety of students and teachers doing their jobs – and the reason closing the schools was the best option.
When you’re talking about cameras and door locks and our air-conditioning and heating systems and in our Internet, they are really core systems to make sure that our students are safe and our our faculty can do a world class lessons every day,said Jerome School District's superintendent, Brent Johnson.
Hackers threaten data leak
Johnson told Idaho's local KMVT News on Tuesday that IT teams “worked around the clock to restore the network and to identify what information may have been compromised.”
The superintendent also said that established incident response procedures helped contain the damage, limiting the hackers' access to additional information.
The school district has not disclosed exactly how much student data was stolen or which categories were affected, but said it "believes most student data had not been compromised," according to KMVT.
Still, the attackers wasted no time, allegedly threatening to expose the stolen information unless the school district paid an undisclosed ransom.
At this point, we’ve been working with the cybersecurity experts on our own technical team to try and prevent anything from being captured that we have to deal with, but it’s an ongoing struggle,said District Superintendent Brent Johnson.
Unclear if ransom was paid
Johnson said the district is focused on protecting its students, staff, data, and systems and has been working closely with law enforcement.
However, he would not confirm whether the district had already paid a ransom or was planning to, only acknowledging the "difficulty of the situation."
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“I would rather these people be behind bars and be prosecuted for what they do, but it is delicate," Johnson told KMVT, adding that "there are a lot of places that have paid" their attackers.
According to the latest reports by KMVT, schools are set to reopen on Wednesday.
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