Our students are getting ready to head
back to school after a sudden day off.
Today, the district says it found
suspicious activity on its network
and shut it down just to be safe.
This all comes as Minneapolis public
schools is still dealing with fallout
from a ransomware attack that put
years of personal information at risk.
So what is going on with our
schools and how many more might
be at risk of network attacks?
Can't you looked into that today?
Yeah, I did, Sharon.
I spoke to a school cybersecurity expert
who said it is no coincidence that
two of our state's biggest districts
are dealing with incidents right now.
And even though we're still
waiting to see the extent of
what's happening in Rochester,
they say no Minnesota school or
parent should just take a wait
and see approach to any of this.
On Thursday, April 6th, our technology
staff in Rochester Public Schools
detected unusual activity on our
school districts technology network.
Beyond that socalled unusual activity,
very little is known, at least publicly,
about the status of Rochester
public Schools technology network
and the information on it.
It's absolutely the case that it can take
days or even weeks to determine actually
what happened and what may be at risk.
Doug Levin is national director of the K12
Security Information Exchange, a national.
Nonprofit that helps schools protect
themselves from cybersecurity threats.
Since 2016, his group has tracked more than
1600 cyber incidents across the country.
That includes 288 in 2022,
including seven right here in Minnesota.
And these are just for publicly
reported incidents, right?
There are many, many incidents
that are not publicly reported.
This is a significant problem,
and it's one that has been growing
both in frequency and severity, he
says. That severity is being
driven by a rise in large ransom.
Where attacks seen here in
Gray similar to the one that
recently hit Minneapolis public
schools and still jeopardizes the
personal information of staff,
students, and their parents.
What is it about school districts
that's making them targets?
They have a lot of valuable information.
This may be somewhat counterintuitive,
but the identity information of minors
is actually much more valuable.
To identity thieves than that of adults, he
says. That's because adults are
much more likely to monitor their
credit and receive notifications
of suspicious activity. Minors
identity information can be
used to abuse credit records,
in some cases for years and years,
without anyone knowing.
In response, Doug says all parents
should consider freezing their
children's credit to be proactive.
And a new education bill offered
by the Minnesota House would help
districts be proactive, too,
offering 35 million in grants
next year to improve building
security and cybersecurity.
And on the federal level,
Fema's new state and local cybersecurity
grant program is also rolling out.
All but two states are participating
in that, and the money is designed,
you know, specifically to help.
Organizations like school districts
to shore up their cyber defenses, but
he says raising those defenses
will also take better communication
so that everyone can learn from
each other before it's too late.
Ask for your patience and understanding
as we work to resolve this situation.
As quickly as possible, hopefully
Rochester takes a a lesson learned from
what happened in Minneapolis with the
frustration in the school community,
which I think is quite understandable.
But it's important to keep those lines
of communication open and allow,
you know, individuals who may be
affected to take steps to protect
themselves as soon as possible.
You know, in just the last few
minutes we did receive an update
from Rochester Public Schools.
It said that they did confirm that
an outside actor has gained access
to some school district data.
But so far they say there is no
evidence that any data has been used
for financial fraud or identity theft.
In a statement,
they said we continue working with
third party cybersecurity experts to
determine the full scope and scale of
this incident and we will share more
information when it becomes available.
So there's a lot still to
learn about this, Sharon.
Yeah, Kent. And you know,
I know in your story you
mentioned some of those proactive
steps that parents could take.
Could you rehash those again?
Yeah. It's really about
freezing your child's credit.
And there's ways to do that with the
various credit reporting agencies.
We've got some information on that
along with this story on care 11, calm.
All right. Thank you, Kent.