Dive Brief:

• The Holley School District in rural Western New York employs only about 150 people, but a cyberattack exposed the personal information of thousands, including contractors and former employees.
• The Democrat & Chronicle reports the attack was discovered by an office secretary in April and exposed personal data about current and former employees and contractors dating back to 2004.
• The school shut down a vulnerable portal that may have been the source of the breach and sent letters to inform everyone who may have been exposed, but school officials say there is no evidence indicating anyone’s personal information was actually acquired.

Dive Insight:

Schools large and small can be the target of cyberattacks. As organizations with relatively low security protections and a range of personal data for large groups of people, schools are attractive opportunities for data theft. Ransomware is one of the newest strategies for hackers looking to score quick money. They access an organization’s network and basically take data hostage, demanding a ransom to unencrypt important files. A South Carolina district recently paid more than $8,000 to get access to its files. Key protections against this type of vulnerability include automatic file backups, which allow for a restore of encrypted files instead of needing to pay for the encryption key, and cloud storage, which lets users access their files from outside an infected network.