WALLED LAKE, Mich. – In an email sent to parents late Sunday, the Walled Lake Consolidated Schools District said a system outage has been linked to a cyberattack.
The hack will not impact virtual learning, the district said. Superintendent Kenneth Gutman said virtual learning will proceed as normal when classes resume Monday morning.
Police are investigating the attack. Walled Lake school officials said there is a possibility credentials and other information was taken. However, it’s not clear exactly what hackers were able to gain access to.
READ: ‘Zoom bombing’ -- how to protect yourself from hackers on Zoom calls
Read the District’s email below:
Good Evening WLCSD Parents,
I want to take this opportunity to share information about our system outage and let you know what we know at this time.
We have confirmed that our systems have been hacked. Upon suspicion of this we engaged, immediately, with a team of forensic experts, a cyber counterintelligence consulting firm, and a law firm that specializes in cyber attacks. The District has a cyber security insurance policy which provides us access to these and other experts in the field. We have also alerted authorities.
No time has been wasted in exploring exactly what this means to our systems and data. The team of experts has been working around the clock to gain as much information as possible about this attack, as well as to determine how and when we will be able to fully restore our systems.
What we have learned is that the attackers were successful in gaining access to our system and that there is the possibility that credential and other information was available to them. Unfortunately, we do not have any specifics at this point but we will certainly keep you updated as we receive additional information.
While systems will be brought back over the course of this next week, it is not yet known when we will have access to those systems.
As communicated earlier today, Our Path and My Path virtual learning will continue, uninterrupted, for all students in WLCSD tomorrow.
This is what we know at this time. We will continue to communicate information as we know it.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work through this this disturbing event.
Kenneth Gutman, Superintendent of Schools