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Interim superintendent outlines cyberattack that disrupted district phones and internet
Summary
Interim Superintendent Jen Curry said a Dec. 3 cyber incident forced the district to shut down systems; internet and many services have been restored, an investigation with local and federal partners is ongoing, and the district is contracting outside help to produce a remediation report.
Interim Superintendent Jen Curry told the Wayne-Westland board that a cyberattack on Dec. 3 disrupted internet service, phones, badge systems and building announcement systems across the district.
"On Tuesday, December 3rd, we all received a call basically stating that Internet and phones were down," Curry said. She said the district took systems offline to limit further damage and immediately began forensic investigation and recovery efforts.
Curry said the district worked with Wayne Risa, local authorities and federal partners and that the investigation is continuing. "We work closely with Wayne Risa. We work closely with local authorities, and even the FBI and the CIA were involved in at the table," she said.
She said internet access has been restored across buildings and that badge and door-lock systems have come back online; announcement systems were in final stages of restoration. Curry said the district is working with an outside cybersecurity firm (SureFire) to produce a report on the incident and to recommend upgrades.
Curry also described contingency measures used during the outage: issuing hot spots, relying on backup systems and leveraging IT staff and community partners to maintain operations. The district is reviewing insurance coverage and whether identity-monitoring services for affected individuals would be covered.
Trustees asked about the scope of a potential data breach and timing for phone restoration; Curry said phones could be restored by the end of the week or by return from the break and that the data investigation remains ongoing.
Next steps: Forensic work and an external report (via SureFire) are ongoing; the district will report additional findings when permitted by the investigation.
