A GandCrab ransomware attack forced Monroe County School District in Florida to shut down its computer systems for at least three days.
This particular ransomware was first spotted in January 2018 being distributed via two distinct exploit kits in a few ongoing campaigns. The version used to attack the school appeared to be a newer version of the malware.
The attack was discovered when an employee working on payroll informed the IT team of an issue after noticing some undisclosed problems.
“This particular one was a variant that Symantec hadn’t seen before,” Pat Lefere, executive director of operations and planning for the district told The Miami Herald. “They took all of our files and created a patch for us. It was applied to all servers before bringing them back up.”
The IT department believed that they would have the issued fixed by Tuesday morning however the system was still down by Wednesday afternoon although the district’s website was up and running.
