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March 31, 2015

New Jersey School District Hit By Ransomware Attack

By Oliver VanDervoort, Contributing Writer

While hackers and malware get more headlines, ransomware might be the most insidious invasion of privacy there is. A New Jersey school district can certainly attest to just how horrible this kind of breach can be, considering it was hit with a crypto-ransomware attack that has brought the feds out to investigate. This attack was attempting to hold the school district’s computerized Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams hostage for various amounts of money.



While the attack itself is strange, simply because of who the victim is, the amount of money that has been asked for is also raising eyebrows. The attack began on March 22 against the Swedesboro-Woolwich school district, New Jersey State Police Cyber Crimes Unit, as well as the FBI and Homeland Security. What the investigation has found so far, according to Network World is that the attack has put a rather large kink in the district’s ability to hold the PARCC exams.

The school district said that the crypto-ransomware has, “affected the district's entire operations from internal and external communications to its point-of-sale for school lunches. It also has prevented any students from taking the scheduled PARCC exams, which are entirely computerized.”

Investigators are currently working to find out who the responsible party is. So far, there has been some confusion over how much was asked as a ransom. First reports said that $500 worth of Bitcoins were being asked for. Other reports are saying that the ransom was actually 500 Bitcoins. The difference in the value of those ransoms is somewhere in the neighborhood of $120,000. The confusion over how much has been asked has led some to wonder if this is a student’s doing, perhaps one who is simply trying to get out of exams. That said, a breach like this seems a bit too high tech to be a fake attack. For now, the culprit and what they are looking for, remains up in the air.




Edited by Dominick Sorrentino
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