Broward County Public Schools, the sixth largest U.S. school district, targeted by massive ransomware attack

Jacob Knutson
·1 min read

Broward County Public Schools, the sixth largest school district in the United States, said Thursday it had been the target of a massive ransomware attack, according to AP.

Why it matters: In March, hackers encrypted some of the Fort Lauderdale-based district's data and demanded a $40 million cryptocurrency payment or they would erase the files and publish the personal information of students and employees online.

Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.

What they're saying: Broward said Thursday it made no extortion payment and that no personal information had been published online, according to AP.

  • The district added that it is working with cybersecurity experts to shore up its computer systems and restore affected systems.

The big pictures: Screenshots of negotiations between Broward County Public Schools and the hackers show that at one point the school district offered $500,000 to restore the data, according to WPTV, an NBC-affiliated television station.

  • The attack briefly shutdown the district’s computer system in early March, but classes were not disrupted.

More from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free

Recommended Stories

  • Fort Worth mayor wants to extend school year to help students catch up. Would it work?

    Some teachers and parents are skeptical.

  • Undergraduate Students at Brown University Vote in Favor of Reparations for Students Who Descended From Slaves

    A report commissioned by Brown University over a decade ago revealed that the school’s namesake family was deeply involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Citing the school’s history with slavery, the school’s undergraduate students have voted in favor of the university providing reparations for descendants of those who were enslaved.

  • Kids going back to school in a pandemic are met with another trauma: Active shooter drills

    Active shooter drills are associated with increases in depression and anxiety among students, teachers and parents.

  • Report: Learning Loss Data Shows 40,000 Los Angeles High School Students Off Track to Graduate

    Forty thousand high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District are at risk of not graduating — including 6,000 this year — according to a new analysis that tracks the effects of school closures on students in the nation’s second largest district. In middle school, about a third of students in the district […]

  • Student journalist discovers Harvard KKK photo, racist history

    A photo from 1924 of members of the Ku Klux Klan casually posed in full garb on the campus of Harvard University inspired a student journalist to dig deeper into the institution’s past. The Washington Post reported that the image, titled “Harvard Class Day — Class Day at Harvard, Klans Klass 21 — have fun,” was taken by Massachusetts photographer Leslie Jones. Simon J. Levien found the photo and decided to explore the Harvard of decades past.

  • Snowy conditions cause a massive highway pileup in Ohio

    The crash involved about 20 cars and shut down a stretch of Interstate 77 in Ohio on Thursday afternoon. There are no reports of any serious injuries.

  • Hackers breach Broward schools’ computer system. They’re demanding millions in ransom

    Hackers breached the Broward County Public Schools’ computer system earlier this month and threatened to release sensitive information, including students’ and teachers’ personal data, unless the district paid $40 million.

  • My wife’s father left her a home and share in a trust. This subsidizes our lifestyle. Should I convince her to make a will?

    ‘I am concerned that if something happened, her sisters might try to claim it as family property and say I’m not entitled to it.’Ï

  • Pfizer jab produces 'off the scale immune response' likely to protect against Brazilian variant

    Subscribe to The Telegraph for a month-long free trial The Pfizer vaccine produces an "off the scale" immune response that is likely to protect against the Brazilian variant of Covid-19, researchers say. The biggest study on antibody and cellular immune factors to date suggests people are likely to be protected against the Wuhan, Kent and Brazilian types of coronavirus following two doses of the vaccine. The research, led by the University of Birmingham and including Public Health England's Porton Down laboratory, found 98 per cent of people aged 80 or over who had two doses of the Pfizer jab had a strong antibody immune response. Professor Paul Moss, from the University of Birmingham and leader of the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium, told a briefing: "We've certainly seen in this paper that the antibody levels are so good, really after the first two weeks, that we are pretty confident that this should be very helpful against the Brazilian variant." Asked if he is surprised how well the vaccines have worked in older people, he said: "We were. When we sent these samples to Porton Down they said 'we can't give you results right now because we've got to dilute them because they're so high, they're off the scale'." The Birmingham study included 100 people aged 80 to 96 who received their vaccine doses three weeks apart, before the UK adopted a policy of stretching the time between jabs to 12 weeks. Prof Moss added that it will be crucial to see how long antibody levels are maintained after people have had a Covid-19 vaccine.

  • It sounds like the Supreme Court is about to bust the NCAA’s [b]racket | Opinion

    Critical words uttered by some U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday is being taken as a sign that the NCAA will have to eventually pay its athletes.

  • Harvard Sparks Outrage After Telling Students ‘You May Wish That You Weren’t Asian’

    Harvard has come under fire for posting offensive messages including, “You may wish that you weren’t Asian” on its "Anti-Asian Racism Resources" page. The school’s Counseling and Mental Health Services had originally sent out the resources to address the rise of anti-Asian bias and attacks since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Student Matteo Wong took to Twitter on Tuesday to express his disappointment.

  • Tucker: GOP is no longer the party of Wall Street

    'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host on the direction of the Republican party post-Trump

  • Anonymous Letter Tells Asians to 'Go Home,' Threatens Business in Utah

    An Asian American-owned business in Taylorsville, Utah recently received an anonymous letter stating that all Asian people must “go home now.” Detectives with the Unified Police Department are considering this incident as a possible hate crime, FOX 13 reported. HATE LETTER - Detectives with the Unified Police Department are investigating after a disturbing and threatening letter was sent to at least one Asian-American owned business.

  • São Paulo cemeteries opened at night as Covid-19 deaths in Brazil spiral out of control

    As Brazil breaks death records from a surge in Covid-19 cases, São Paulo cemeteries – one of the Brazilian states most impacted by the pandemic - are now open at night to face the increase in burials.

  • Pandemic poised to surge again in California's Silicon Valley tech hub

    A California community that has been a bellwether of the coronavirus pandemic's rampage across the United States warned on Thursday that the number of cases of more contagious COVID-19 variants is increasing to worrisome levels. "The region's progress in curbing the pandemic remains precarious," the health department in Santa Clara County, home to California's Silicon Valley, said. The situation in Santa Clara, which was home to an early surge of coronavirus in California last year and the nation's first death from COVID-19, offers a window into the pandemic's progress across the wider United States.

  • Ban water for voters? Following Georgia, Florida GOP as predictable as its proposals are racist | Editorial

    Florida Republicans’ tactics ahead of the 2022 elections are clear and simple: Make it hard for citizens to vote by mail. When they go to the polls in the Florida heat, make standing in line more miserable by making it illegal to hand them water.

  • Judge tosses some claims in old Georgia election lawsuit

    A wide-ranging lawsuit filed more than two years ago and challenging the way Georgia's elections were run has been pared down by a judge who said this week that claims against the state's “exact match” voter registration requirement can move forward. When she narrowly lost the governor's race in November 2018, Democrat Stacey Abrams promised to sue over “the gross mismanagement of this election." Fair Fight Action, a group she founded, filed that lawsuit a few weeks later, asserting that mismanagement by state officials had violated the constitutional rights of some citizens — particularly low-income people and people of color — by depriving them of their right to vote.

  • 66% of epidemiologists warn mutations could make COVID vaccines ineffective in year or less

    Some experts say the world may only have a year or less to stave off a new round of COVID-19 variants that could evade the existing vaccines, according to survey conducted by advocates trying to speed up vaccinations in developing nations.Why it matters: Variants emerge when viruses spread widely, so quickly vaccinating the entire world is the best way to curb new variants. But some experts are afraid we won't get there fast enough.Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for freeThe big picture: Much of the developing world won't have widespread access to COVID vaccines until next year, if not later — giving new variants time to form, and to spread.In a survey of 77 epidemiologists, about two-thirds said the world likely has a year or less before the virus changes so much that existing vaccines wouldn't be effective against the new strains.That would require booster shots or new vaccines.The survey was sponsored by the People's Vaccine Alliance, an organization that wants to strip some intellectual property protections from vaccine makers in the hopes of producing more doses. What they're saying: “The virus doesn’t respect borders and new variants somewhere on the planet mean none of us are safe," Gregg Gonsalves, associate professor of epidemiology at Yale University, said in the survey.Methodology: The survey was carried out between February 17 and March 25, 2021. Survey respondents include epidemiologists, virologists and infection disease specialists in 28 countries. More from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free

  • Why you should grab those low airfares now

    Air fares are rising as more people receive COVID-19 vaccines and passengers eager to vacation book plans to to get out.

  • Sarah Palin Reveals COVID Diagnosis and 'Bizarre' Symptoms, Urges Others to Continue Wearing Masks

    "My case is perhaps one of those that proves anyone can catch this," Palin tells PEOPLE