There remains “no proof any sensitive data about students or teachers has been leaked” due to a Jan. 30 cyberattack on Tucson Unified School District, an official told board members.
The assurance was made by Rabih Hamadeh, TUSD’s executive director of technology services, at Thursday evening’s meeting of the district governing board. He added there is no final determination on the issue as investigations continue.
Officials have high confidence that two critical district systems are secure, for finance/human resources and for student information, according to a TUSD slide shown at the board meeting.
Systems have come back incrementally and “we’ve had school through all of this, which I think is a testament to the will and resilience of this district,” Hamadeh said.
TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said he is asking “the community for patience” because, “out of an abundance of caution ... we are very limited in what we can say” about specific security steps and other details.
The officials did not say, and board members did not ask, if the district paid any ransom to the attackers, who sent ransom demands through district printers on Jan. 30. The district has declined to answer that question when asked by the Star.
Trujillo has previously confirmed that a ransomware group called Royal, active internationally, was responsible for what he called a “cyber terrorism” event.
Hamadeh said TUSD has done a “massive password change” for all teachers, students and staff, and will conduct training for all about new security measures.
He also said the district, Tucson’s largest, will start a phased approach to more transition to cloud computing and cloud storage, under which companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft are “responsible with us for protecting your data.” But there are “budget considerations,” he said, adding “we need to be sure the budget is there” this year and in coming years.
After more than 40 years, IBM's Tucson-area storage development site is still helping customers safely manage a deluge of data.
