Cyberattack wreaks havoc on CATS, LAUSD
By Angel T. & Arely V.
LAUSD experienced a massive cyberattack starting on September 5, wreaking havoc for CATS teachers and students, not to mention the whole district. The attackers who claimed responsibility for the hacking are called Vice Society, which is a Russian ransomware group recognized for targeting educational domains for ransom payments, according to the website TechCrunch.
Shannon Haber, an LAUSD Spokesperson, stated in a press release that negotiating ransom is not an option as, “Public dollars are better spent on our students rather than capitulating to a nefarious and illicit crime syndicate.” The district also stated that 500 GB of confidential records were stolen, including social security numbers, passport details, and tax forms which were leaked on the dark web.
But, according to an LA Times article, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said that “Based on what we have seen, there is at this point no evidence of widespread impact as far as truly sensitive, confidential information. The release was actually more limited than what we had originally anticipated.”
“We came to school in the morning, and surprise, nothing was working. So, we had to think on our feet pretty much.”
Mr. Dominguez, English teacher
The cyberattack came as a surprise as students and teachers started their day after coming back from a four-day weekend holiday weekend. “We came to school in the morning, and surprise, nothing was working,” said Mr. Victor Dominguez, English teacher. “So, we had to think on our feet pretty much.”
Students at CATS mainly work on chromebooks, which made it hard to access digital lessons when their accounts and passwords were not working. According to science teacher Ms. Michelle Suarez, “Students use their chromebooks every day in my class.” However, teachers had to improvise as it was nearing the start of class when they realized that they wouldn’t be able to do anything online. “I decided to deal with the problem. We all just took out a sheet of paper and I basically taught on the whiteboard.” said Ms. Suarez. Mr. Dominguez had it easier, “For my class, we already use composition books. It was really easy to just come up with things instead of putting it on Schoology.”
CATS, a technology-driven school, also has its technological issues. Despite these setbacks, a senior, Josue H., says “I was glad that it happened because the workload wasn’t that much.” An excuse to slack off wasn’t t permanent, however, “I went to Mr. Angel and then he reset my password.”
Mr. Angel Canlas, who is in charge of all things digital, became the unofficial tech hero after the ransomware attack. He was able to send student pins to every teacher, which is required for password resets. “I tried like 4 different times [to reset passwords], and every single time it wouldn’t [work] because people were still having issues,” Mr. Dominguez said. “Most of the servers couldn’t handle the traffic. Eventually, students were able to change their passwords and log in.”
Though, there were a few students who were still having issues with changing their passwords. Ms. Suarez stated, “I was on the phone with IT and LAUSD actually called him [Mr. Angel] to help some students get back into their accounts.”
The entirety of LAUSD was impacted for several weeks. But the district said it’s making a change. “The district has approved an emergency declaration to prevent a cyber attack from happening again,” according to CBS News. They are also restricting the number of access teachers have to MISIS — the site teachers use to access important student information — outside of school to help prevent people from getting into the system, shared Mr. Dominguez.
