Philadelphia Mastery School hit by cyber incident
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Mastery Schools, Philadelphia’s largest charter school network is reporting a significant disruption to its IT systems earlier this week, caused by suspicious activity from an external source.
The incident began on Monday 16th of September 2024, took down internet access, phones, and limited email functionality across its schools in Philadelphia and Camden, affecting both teachers and students.
Initially, the school network downplayed the event, suggesting it did not impact classroom instruction. However, a teacher from Mastery Hardy Williams in Southwest Philadelphia disputed this, revealing that many classrooms were heavily affected, especially those reliant on Chromebooks and internet-based lesson plans.
On Tuesday 17th September the CEO of Mastery Schools, confirmed that the system shutdown was due to "suspicious activity attributed to an unauthorized external source." Mastery Schools has since engaged cybersecurity professionals and contacted federal law enforcement to investigate and resolve the issue.
No details are disclosed about the nature of the attack or any stolen data.
As of now, there is no clear timeline for when the network will be fully restored. Teachers were informed to prepare for the possibility of the outages lasting several days. Mastery Schools is working with cybersecurity experts to ensure the systems are brought back online safely.
Update - as of 9th of June 2025, Mastery Schools report that the incident was a ransomware attack claimed by the DragonForce ransomware grou. They gained unauthorized access to the school network's systems and encrypted critical infrastructure. The attack that compromised the personal data of 37,031 individuals. Mastery began sending official notices over the weekend to those affected.
The compromised data reportedly includes a wide range of sensitive information:
- Names
- Dates of birth
- Social Security numbers
- Taxpayer ID numbers
- Government-issued identification documents
- Passport numbers
- Bank and financial account information
- Credit and debit card details
- Biometric data
- Usernames and passwords
- Medical and health insurance information
- Student identification numbers
- Student academic records
Mastery is offering complimentary credit monitoring and identity protection services through Experian IdentityWorks
