Cyberattack against Florida school district under investigation

Officials at the Hillsborough County School District in Florida have launched an investigation into a cyberattack that resulted in the days-long disruption of some of its systems, according to Fox 13 Tampa Bay. However, widespread impact has been prevented by the district through its monitoring systems and no student information system data has been compromised in the attack, said Hillsborough County School Interim Superintendent Van Ayres in a statement, which also noted that the efforts to completely restore its operational systems are underway. Public school districts have been attractive targets for cyberattacks due to the presence of troves of personal data, with attacks often attributed to cybercriminals and current or former students, noted former Florida Center for Cybersecurity Staff Director Ron Sanders. "Seventy-five or 80% of all hacks are the result of social engineering. That's a fancy way of saying they found somebody who's gullible, who clicks on the wrong kind of email or the wrong attachment, and they let a cybercriminal or malicious student...they let them in the system," Sanders said.