Police on the Isle of Wight are investigating whether or not a ransomware attack on an Island school’s computer network was malicious.
The Isle of Wight Council have this week alerted local schools to the recent issue, which has seen significant disruption and temporary data loss, as well as having cost implications.
Schools across the Isle of Wight are being urged to make sure that appropriate business continuity plans are in place and are being reminded that attacks not only cause disruption, but having a corporate risk to the Isle of Wight Council in terms of its reputation and responsibility to the education of children.
It is currently unclear which school has been the victim of such an attack.
A list of guidelines has been issued to education providers;
• Back up your servers. Make sure you have an onsite facility and also an offsite facility in the form of external hard drives etc.
• Make sure you have an IT policy for the school which contains rules on the use of personal memory sticks and devices
• Be aware of what your staff are doing and what they are using on school hardware
• Make sure you specify well when procuring systems
• Risk assess how you will deal with a loss of data and how it impacts on the day to day running of the school
• Don’t cut cost on support from your provider
