A school district and city in the same geographically area in Texas were each hit with ransomware this week with the city of Garrison making a quick recovery, however, the Nacogdoches Independent School District (NISD) is still struggling.
School district officials said the attack struck on February 11 forcing IT admins to shut down the computer network in an effort to limit damage. Officials are unsure how the ransomware was downloaded. NISD has contacted law enforcement and Microsoft to help in reestablishing the district’s computer network, a process that could require several days to complete.
“The cybersecurity attack encrypted and locked files on PCs so some of the district’s computer users cannot read them; the attackers do not have access to any of the information,” Nacogdoches said in a statement on Facebook.
Garrison was hit February 10 with the mayor saying the city was fully recovered and functioning normally by February 13, KTRE reported.
Nacogdoches and Garrison are located about 20 miles apart and while the two do not share a computer system, local officials are checking to see if the attacks are related, reported KTRE. In August 2019 23 cities in Texas were hit with a coordinated ransomware attack that the Texas Department of Information Resources determined was launched by a single actor.
