Hackers launch ‘serious’ attacks against Georgia school district, New Mexico university

Multiple school districts and a university in New Mexico are currently suffering from cyberattacks causing operational issues for thousands of students. 

In a statement on Sunday, Georgia’s Coweta County School System said it experienced a cyberattack on Friday evening that will impact its 23,000 students across 29 K-12 schools.  

“Some school system network processes will be hampered in the coming days, and school system employees have been advised not to access desktop devices, while the matter is being investigated,” the school district said. 

School system official Dean Jackson called the attack “serious” and said it has been reported to the Georgia Emergency Management Authority and Homeland Security. The district’s IT system was alerted to unusual activity Friday and took systems offline. 

“Access to the school system’s internal network will be restricted during this period to allow for ongoing investigation and monitoring,” Jackson explained. 

The attack comes at a particularly difficult time as many schools prepare for final exams and Advanced Placement testing, which is still scheduled to begin on Monday. 

Students will still have access to WiFi and Chromebooks. The school system is working with cybersecurity experts, federal and state authorities on an investigation into whether student and employee information was accessed. 

Over the last week, multiple K-12 schools announced cyberattacks currently affecting operations or past incidents that exposed student and employee data. Bartlesville Public Schools in Oklahoma was forced to cancel state testing last week after a cyberattack left most of the district’s computer systems inoperable. 

At least one school in the district warned parents that they are without internet, which is slowing down the dismissal process at the end of the day. 

Multiple past incidents were reported to state regulators over the last two weeks, including a wide-ranging ransomware attack on Baltimore City Public Schools that impacted more than 20,000 current and former employees.

Charleston County School District in South Carolina also reported a cyber incident affecting 20,653 students last year. The RansomHub cybercriminal operation claimed it attacked the school in August 2024. 

Alvin Independent School District in Texas also reported a 2024 breach to regulators, warning that more than 47,000 students were affected by the incident, which was claimed by the Fog ransomware gang in July. 

Outages in New Mexico

Western New Mexico University has struggled for weeks with a cyberattack that took down its website and forced officials to provide alternative services to students and administrators. 

The school, which serves more than 3,000 students in Silver City, said the attack began on April 13 and disrupted the university’s website along with other systems and services. 

Officials have continued to provide updates on the school Facebook page but are still using a temporary website with no estimated date for when the official site will be back up and running. 

The temporary website warns students not to use campus desktops until a member of the IT department has verified that they are safe. Campus WiFi is still down.

“We have worked to keep our students, faculty and staff updated over the past two weeks via SMS, email and social media and as systems are restored, we will inform the university community,” school officials said on Facebook. 

“Faculty are offering assignment and project extensions to support students as the university approaches finals week, helping to ensure this outage does not negatively impact academic progress.”

The comment sections of many of the school’s Facebook posts are inundated with angry students who are furious about the lack of updates on the restoration progress and the measures they have to take to complete final assignments — particularly those who are taking online classes and do not have access to on-campus resources.

Western New Mexico University did not respond to requests for comment about whether they are dealing with a ransomware attack or when services would be fully restored. 

Ransomware gangs have ramped up attacks on colleges and K-12 schools in April and May, likely hoping the need for technology during final exams will force schools to pay ransoms. Experts have tracked more than 70 ransomware attacks on educational institutions so far this year and multiple colleges have already warned the public of cyber incidents last year that leaked sensitive data. 

Albion College reported a data breach last week after the Medusa ransomware gang claimed an attack in December and Southern Arkansas University Tech confirmed a breach after the RansomHub gang said it attacked the school in February.