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Hackers used ‘despicable’ language and images on Troy School District’s website

District tightens security measures in response

As a result the district is tightening security measures and all of its websites have been taken down temporarily.

DETROIT – On Monday, the Troy School District’s website was hacked with hate speech and graffiti posted on all of its sites.

Additionally, the district stated that the system’s internal messenger was used to send emails to staff and some families.

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As a result the district is tightening security measures and all of its websites have been taken down temporarily.

No student information or sensitive data was comprised by the breach, according to the district.

Kerry Birmingham, Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives for the Troy School District, released the following statement Monday with details on the incident:

Earlier today our district website was hacked. Hate speech and graffiti was posted on all of our district websites and the system’s internal messenger was used to send emails to staff and some families.

The language and images used were despicable, and we strongly denounce them. We are working in collaboration with the Michigan State Cyber Response Team and an investigation is under way. Preliminary information shows that this hack generated from outside the country using a known malicious IP address and that no student information or sensitive data was comprised by the breach.

We understand that this has an impact that reverberates across our community but does not equally harm each member. Hate has no place in the Troy School District; acts like this will not be tolerated. This is a reminder of why our equity work is so important as we stand together as a school district community for respect and inclusion. We are actively listening to our students, staff and families affected by this and other incidents as we seek to move forward together in ways that restore and repair harm. We are committed to growing our capacity to develop systems to support students and build an environment of safety and belonging.

All of our websites have been taken down temporarily to reset webmaster passwords and to ensure that the hackers didn’t create any points for future access. We are also tightening security measures on our vendor hosted websites and working with their teams to ensure that this does not happen again.

Read more: Education headlines


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