Around 75,000 school children in New Mexico will miss school for the second time on Friday after a cyber attack hit the state’s largest school district on Wednesday.
At least five other school districts have suffered costly cyberattacks in the past two years, according to insurance agents who cover school damage. Schools in Las Cruces, New Mexico were digitally paralyzed for months after an attack in 2019.
The school’s student information database was one of the targets of the attack on Albuquerque public schools discovered Wednesday while teachers were preparing for class. But even so, Las Cruces didn’t cancel the class and decided to move record-keeping obligations like attendance to paper records.
Another ransomware attack hit computers in Bernalillo County, home of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s largest city, according to CNN. Residents were unable to apply for mortgages because of the attack, the New Mexico Association of Realtors reported.
The FBI office in Albuquerque is investigating, telling CNN in a statement: “At this point, it does not appear that the APS [Albuquerque Public Schools] and the Bernalillo County’s cyber incidents are related. “
The Albuquerque Journal reported that Bernalillo County has not made an estimate of when computer systems will be fully functional again.
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