What happened?Monday morning our computer systems were found to be infected with a virus. While there are many types of malware and viruses, this particular version infects a computer system and uses a high-level encryption to lock up your data then requires a key to unlock the data. We shut down our servers and systems to stop the virus from spreading further which meant interrupting our online services such as PowerSchool.How this happens:Computer viruses, malware, adware, etc... are unfortunately, extremely prevalent and constantly changing. Once on a computer a virus tends to replicate and spread to other connected computers. In a system with many servers and computers, this can happen very quickly. HCS was not targeted by any person or organization trying to gain access to our data. While we maintain and monitor our systems routinely and diligently, it is difficult to remain completely unsusceptible to new viruses.What this means for our data and computer systems:Nothing has been stolen or taken off of our servers. Student and staff information is safe and remains on our servers. Our data is backed up and the HCS technology department is currently restoring servers to eliminate the locked data. Due to the size of our infrastructure, this will take time though are hoping to have our system fully functional by the end of the week.What this means for our classrooms:While we pride ourselves on the use of technology in our classrooms, our educators are resilient, creative, and will continue to adapt to teaching with the best tools they have on hand. There are many technology tools teachers are able to use that were not impacted by the virus.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
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