Glouco school network hackers demand ransom

SWEDESBORO – A controversial statewide test was interrupted for two days by a cyber attack on Swedesboro-Woolwich Schools' network, according to district officials.

The Web-based testing — Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) — is expected to resume Wednesday at all four district elementary schools after a ransomware program held the district's computer network hostage in exchange for 500 bitcoins, a hard-to-trace digital currency.

The Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office and the New Jersey State Police cyber crimes units are investigating the network hijacking.

Personal information and other critical data was "not compromised in any way, shape or form," according to Superintendent Terry Van Zoeren.

Most personal information is stored in servers in remote locations, he added.

The school district has been "strongly discouraged" from paying the ransom, the superintendent said.

There's no guarantee the 500 bitcoins — worth about $125,000 — would unlock the system, according to technology expert David Suleski, owner of Cherry Hill-based TechStarters.

There's a slim chance they're working with honorable terrorists," Suleski said, noting more than 95 percent of ransomware attacks originate outside of the United States.

Most ransomware "cyber terrorists" take the money and run," he added.

"It's like a pirate taking a kidnapping victim — they might release the victim for ransom, or they might not," Suleski said.

"They should take a step back and evaluate how this even happened. They should have firewall upon firewall."

Ransomware commonly strikes individuals' personal computers, encrypting files that when opened are mere gibberish, Suleski explained.

The safest way to remove the encryption without paying is to wipe the hard drive clean, losing all data.

Van Zoeren hopes it won't come to that.

EIRC, an educational information resource center for schools, offered its network engineers to assist the school district's in-house technical support staff and other paid consultants in recovering system information, the superintendent said.

In the meantime, teachers worked in digital-free classrooms without email, smartboards or Web-based teaching tools.

Reach Carly Q. Romalino at (856) 486-2476 and cromalino@courierpostonline.com. Follow @CarlyQRomalino on Twitter.