- Ransomware is a type of malicious software that threatens to publish/sale victim’s data or block access perpetually unless a specific ransom is paid.
- For students in Baltimore district who have been forced to resort to online classes due to Covid-19 pandemic, it meant that their lessons were no longer available.
- This could potentially affect the schedules set by the district for public county schools.
On Wednesday 25th November 2020, the district became victim to a ransomware attack forcing schools to remain shut down until Tuesday 1st.
The sun a local newspaper estimates that this could potentially take long than earlier projected.
The county took to social media to inform and advise students not to log into the compromised system from their newly issued windows laptops.
Perhaps this might just be the start in what may become organized cyber-crimes targeting e-learning. With Covid-19 still a challenge across America and even beyond, online learning has sort of provided reprieve for students in pursuit of Knowledge. With junior school students less aware of existing cyber threats or even how they manifest, they could pretty much be a low hanging fruit for cyber criminals. Kids who also want to test their computer skills may take up the challenge of attacking their own school systems in this case through internal attacks.
You could certainly see your expertise within the article you write. Rikki Miltie Dermot