Athens ISD Pays $50K for Release of Data in Ransomware Attack

July 29, 2020

KETK

Athens ISD Board of Trustees has agreed to pay a $50,000 ransom for school data that was taken in a criminal ransomware attack. The attack targeted data stored on district servers, backup systems, and hundreds of computers. As a result, access to data has been blocked including teacher communications, student schedules, grades, and assignments. Further investigation revealed that no information has been taken, only encrypted to prevent access until a ransom was paid.