WOLCOTT, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut school district’s officials are preparing to pay hackers who have been holding their computer systems hostage for three months.

The Republican American reports that the Wolcott school board approved a request to allocate money for the ransom Monday night.

Superintendent Anthony Gasper says the virus has blocked all five Wolcott schools from accessing internal files, as well as staff in the central office and business office.

The unidentified individual or group took over the Wolcott computer system during the final week of the last school year.

The hackers are using the same software that recently locked computer systems in 22 Texas towns.

The district’s information technology director Alexander Pagan emailed an address provided by the hackers Tuesday morning.

Wolcott Chief of Police told News 8,

“We only learned about it after reading about it in the newspaper [Wednesday morning]. I sent an officer to do an initial report and my Detectives are now working on it. It is still very early in our investigation, but we did learn that this started right before the summer break. Just wish we had known about it earlier so we could’ve had a say in the decisions as far as ransom, as well as making sure other town computer servers (as well as others in the State) were protected.” Wolcott Police Chief Edward Stephens

Gasper did not say how much money the hackers demanded.

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Information from: Republican-American, http://www.rep-am.com