KFDI reports:
The Newton school district cancelled all classes today after a computer network breach on Tuesday.
So far, district officials have not said exactly what happened or what data may have been accessed. The school district says some computers are being kept offline until it can be sure they are safe to use. Newton schools are working with law enforcement as an investigation is ongoing.
Read more at KFDI.
In their more detailed communications to parents, the district included this:
Was this ransomware?
To protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation, we are unable to share additional information about the nature of the incident.
DataBreaches did not immediately grasp how answering that question would jeopardize the integrity of an investigation, so reached out to Kevin Stear, Co-Founder and Chief of Operations at RedSense to ask. Stear didn’t mince any words:
This school district seems completely over their heads, as evident in their refusal to provide ANY transparency on the threat actors’ activities (i.e., ransomware, potential data compromised and exfiltration, etc.). It is more and more a commonality unfortunately, and both the student body and their terrified parents (as when sensitive student data from Los Angeles USD was leaked by shameful threat actors) should have a right to understand how their lives and personal/private data are being exposed.