By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
SYRACUSE — Wawasee Community School Corporation is recovering from a ransomware attack on one of its district computers.
The attack happened Friday morning and left the district without any internet service.
Tech crews began addressing the issue immediately and spent Saturday and Sunday rebuilding the network.
Superintendent Steve Troyer said Monday that the impact on students has been reduced, but work behind the scenes continues.
Right now, printers and time clocks are still not functioning.
He said it could be weeks before the situation is close to normal behind the scenes.
The attack impacted all of its windows-based computers, servers, and other technology systems.
The attack caused a major disruption to daily operations on Friday, but the district did not shut down.
Officials do not believe student and employee information was compromised since those are not located on local servers.
Troyer said the district was hacked a few years ago and agreed to pay a small ransom to recover. This time, the hackers demanded $1.5 million and 2.5 million after five days and the district balked
“We do have a policy that would help out in a situation like this, but not $1.5 to $2.5 million. Even if we did, I’m not sure I would be in support of paying that,” Troyer said.
Much of the financial impact, Troyer said, will involve overtime pay for the technical staff.
