BURIEN, Wash. — A Washington school district is now on its third day of closure after it suffered a cyberattack over the weekend.
Highline Public Schools wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday that all school activities, athletics, and meetings were canceled Monday after officials found unauthorized activity on its technology systems, King 5 reports.
The district, which has 34 schools that serve more than 17,500 students, said it took immediate action to isolate the affected system and is working with third-party, state, and federal partners to restore the programs.
“There are a lot of systems that we rely on to be able to operate schools that we have essentially cut off access to as we investigate. Transportation, we use a system to determine what busses need to go where that’s an online tool. Attendance tracking, there’s a tool that we need to be able to have access to. So, it’s not that those systems have been compromised at this point. It’s just that we’ve shut off access as we do investigation,” said Tove Tupper, the district’s chief communications officer. “These are not decisions that we take lightly because we know the incredible burden this has on our families and students. We couldn’t bring students into our schools when we know that it wasn’t safe to do so.”
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Around 5 p.m. Monday, the district wrote on its Facebook page that all schools would remain closed on Tuesday, noting the investigation had not found “evidence of staff, family or student information compromised.” Early Tuesday evening, the district announced all schools would also be closed Wednesday.
The central office has remained open and staff have been instructed to report to work but were told not to use district-issued computers and laptops, according to InfoSecurity. No additional information has been released about the nature of the cyberattack.
Cyberattacks on K-12 schools have increased in recent years, according to a report from the U.S. Government of Accountability. Loss of learning following a cyberattack can range from three days to three weeks with full recovery taking anywhere from two to nine months, the agency says. Financial losses can also range from tens of thousands of dollars to millions.
