{"id":18930,"date":"2019-07-31T16:13:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T16:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/news\/?p=18930"},"modified":"2019-07-31T16:13:10","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T16:13:10","slug":"malware-attack-classes-in-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/malware-attack-classes-in-alabama\/","title":{"rendered":"Malware attack delays classes in Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>The <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.houstoncounty.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>Houston County<\/b><\/a><b> school district is falling behind schedule, as for the second time, a<\/b> <b>malware attack postpones the beginning of the school year. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to the original plan, children were supposed to return to school at the beginning of August. However, a <\/span><b>cyberattack to the centralized school network has forced authorities to postpone classes until 12 August.<\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the moment, <\/span><b>there are no official statements from school representatives<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and families do not have information about what information was affected by the attack. <\/span><b>Neither parents nor teachers know if their personal information was accessed. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is also no information about the source of the hack.\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the second postponement of classes, as <\/span><b>initially, the authorities stated that the problem would be resolved in about forty-eight hours.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Unfortunately, the consequences were too severe, so classes had to be postponed by another ten days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Schools are the new targets for malware attacks<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cyberattacks and malware are becoming a significant <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/news\/cyberattacks-on-schools-are-the-latest-headache-for-educators\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">threat<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to the educational system. <\/span><b>Academic websites and networks have become a preferred target for hackers, as they are real treasure troves.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> School databases contain the personal information of thousands of individuals at a time.\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The current delay in classes in the Houston County school district is only a small part of the possible consequences of malware attacks. Nowadays, <\/span><b>personal information is treated as a commodity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, as data science develops and makes it more valuable. Unfortunately, school administration systems are easy targets because they often are not appropriately secured.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/news\/cyberattack-hits-lancaster-university\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">attack<\/a> on Lancaster University is another example of a cyberattack on an educational institution. Considering the rise in such attacks, <\/span><b>many schools have started updating their software to make it more secure.\u00a0 <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Houston County school district is falling behind schedule, as for the second time, a malware attack postpones the beginning of the school year. According to the original plan, children were supposed to return to school at the beginning of August. However, a cyberattack to the centralized school network has forced authorities to postpone classes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[78,886,1114,1226],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}