Located in Arizona, Camp Verde Unified School District is the latest educational system to be struck with ransomware. On July 19th staff members booted up their computers and noticed that things weren’t operating properly. Difficulties stretched all the way to the start of the school year on August 5th, with the business sector being the most affected. Operations like payroll and enrollment were slowed down and had to be done manually. Camp Verde School District Administrator in charge Danny Howe stated, “For every day that our computers aren’t up in the business office, we’re just getting further and further behind in terms of paying bills. We’re doing checks and stuff by hand. People still have to get paid.” Fortunately, the district had cybersecurity insurance already in place that is helping them recover their systems and improve them so similar instances can be prevented in the future.
Analyst Notes
Files that are normally stored on the main server should always be backed up offline in case the main server is taken down. Camp Verde was smart and implemented cybersecurity insurance which other school districts and business should consider how often attacks are happening.
