Editor’s Note: The following is a letter sent out by Manhasset School District Acting Superintendent Dr. Gaurav Passi:
October 18, 2021
Dear Manhasset School Community,
As we have previously communicated, criminals encrypted the school district’s computer systems with ransomware last month. In response, we alerted law enforcement and worked with cybersecurity experts to investigate the incident. Due to security updates completed by our network engineers and IT staff that included network segmentation, we were able to restore our computer systems from backups. As such, the district did not make any ransom payment to the criminals.
We were notified that yesterday, the criminals posted certain files to the dark web that they stole from our servers. We are currently reviewing these files, and we will provide direct notification, in accordance with applicable laws, to any individual whose personal information was potentially acquired by these criminals. Direct notification will contain additional information about the incident and describe measures that can be taken to protect affected individuals from identity theft.
For those individuals whose Social Security numbers and/or driver’s license numbers were contained in the stolen files the direct notification will also include instructions regarding how to enroll in complimentary credit monitoring.
In the interim, we encourage you to remain vigilant by regularly reviewing your credit reports and financial account statements for any unauthorized activity. If you see charges or activity that you did not authorize, please contact the relevant financial institution immediately.
Our district was the victim of a criminal enterprise, and we understand how upsetting this is for our community. Unfortunately, ransomware attacks have been on the rise. We are one of the latest victims in this growing trend which has targeted other school districts, hospitals, and municipalities across the country. The district takes data security very seriously, and we are implementing several additional measures to enhance our security in an effort to prevent an incident like this from reoccurring in the future.
Sincerely,
Dr. Gaurav Passi
Acting Superintendent of Schools
