Incident Response, Malware, TDR

Ransomware holds New Jersey school district’s network hostage

A New Jersey school district's servers were taken hostage over the weekend after being infected by ransomware.

The attackers demanded 500 Bitcoins, or roughly $123,000, to restore the network and all its contents, according to the South Jersey Times. The Swedesboro-Woolwich School District wrote on its website that the NJ State police were performing a forensic analysis, and that the district took immediate steps to contain the infection.

Encrypted files were restored from backup to their original state, the district said, and the servers were restored with all malware removed. No student data was exposed, as it is stored on offsite hosted servers.

Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PDF files that staff members had created were primarily affected.

Email and other systems were still down on Tuesday.

Get daily email updates

SC Media's daily must-read of the most current and pressing daily news

By clicking the Subscribe button below, you agree to SC Media Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.