Providence public schools still struggling with internet outages after ‘irregular activity’

The school district in Rhode Island’s biggest city is still facing internet outages after discovering “irregular activity” last week. 

Since September 11, the Providence Public School District (PPSD) has faced a range of issues caused by the shutdown of their network. The district serves more than 20,000 students across 37 schools.

A spokesperson for PPSD declined to say if they are dealing with a ransomware attack, or even a cyberattack, but told Recorded Future News the district contacted Rhode Island State Police, the FB, and the Department of Homeland Security last Wednesday. 

On Tuesday, the Medusa ransomware gang claimed to have been behind an attack on PPSD, but the spokesperson did not address the dark web post. The group drew outrage last year after a ransomware attack on Minneapolis Public Schools caused days of outages and leaked troves of sensitive student information onto the dark web. 

The PPSD network shutdown has cut off internet access at all of its schools and offices and an investigation is still ongoing, according to the spokesperson. Despite the outages, the district has not closed schools and has continued to hold classes. 

“Staff from central administration are continuing to provide additional support with operations and education plans. Instructional activities and resources that do not require internet access were shared with schools last week,” the district said.

“To maintain essential services during the internet outage, the District has secured hotspots for school offices. Additionally, school security systems and protocols continue to remain active.”

They urged parents with questions to call the district or look for messages on the family communication system ParentSquare. In the latest letter released yesterday, the district criticized people spreading alleged rumors about ParentSquare also being compromised as part of the incident. The platform operates on a separate, cloud-based system that was not impacted by the issues with PPSD. 

The district does not have a timeline for when the issues will be resolved. The Boston Globe reported on Wednesday that teachers were having issues with everything from using printers to accessing curricula. 

Ransomware gangs have intentionally targeted schools at the start of the school year in order to extract large ransoms. 

Several schools across the U.S. have been posted since the start of the school year on ransomware leak sites but few have confirmed attacks. Last week, a Seattle-area school system serving more than 17,000 students was forced to stay closed for multiple days after a cyberattack caused similar network outages.