Hackers infiltrate second-largest US school district in growing trend

Los Angeles Unified, with over 600,000 students, suffers ‘significant infrastructure disruption’ but classes set to take place as usual

Hackers targeted the second-largest school district in the US with a cyber-attack over Labor Day weekend, officials at Los Angeles unified school district have confirmed.

The district characterized the cyber-attack as a “significant disruption to our system’s infrastructure” but officials said they did not expect major problems with teaching or such services as transportation and food. It said business operations might be delayed or modified.

Classes were scheduled to take place as usual Tuesday morning, the district – which includes more than 600,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade – said in a statement.

“Since the identification of the incident, which is likely criminal in nature, we continue to assess the situation with law enforcement agencies,” the district said, adding that a “response protocol” was implemented to mitigate districtwide disruptions, including access to email, computer systems and applications.

The perpetrators appear to have targeted the facilities systems, which involves information about private-sector contractor payments which are publicly available through records requests rather than confidential details like payroll, health and other data, officials said.

Authorities believe the attack originated internationally and have identified three potential countries where it may have come from, though Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho would not say which countries may be involved.

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