Prince George's County Public Schools hit by cyberattack

Prince George's County Public Schools, Maryland (PGCPS) faced a cyberattack on Monday morning, causing disruption to their computer network. Of the approximately 180,000 total user accounts, an estimated 4,500 accounts were impacted by the attack, primarily those belonging to staff members. As a precautionary measure, all PGCPS users are mandated to reset their passwords on Tuesday.

The school district informs that critical network systems have been restored, with additional functions gradually coming back online. Although the full extent of the cyber attack is still under evaluation, initial assessments indicate that essential systems such as Oracle and SchoolMAX have not been affected by the breach.

The identity of the perpetrators, the type of the attack and the compromised data remains unknown.

To address the situation, a team of external cybersecurity experts is anticipated to contact the affected users within the upcoming days, providing further insights into their compromised accounts.

Update - As of 25th August, officials from Prince George’s County Public Schools have disclosed that data stolen in a ransomware attack earlier this month may potentially be exposed online. As a response to this incident, the Maryland school system has initiated measures to provide credit monitoring and identity-theft protection services to affected individuals.

As of 22nd February 2024, the Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) in the Washington, D.C., suburbs experienced a ransomware attack that compromised the personal information of nearly 100,000 individuals.

The school system has chosen Experian to provide credit-monitoring and identity-theft protection services. Additionally, the school community was advised to review their financial statements and accounts starting from Saturday.