Ransomware attack edtech firm FinalSight, shuts down thousands of school websites worldwide

New Delhi: In a serious ransomware attack, hackers have attacked an education technology company, FinalSight, shutting down thousands of school websites and closing nearly 5,000 schools in the US alone.

FinalSight provides website design, hosting and content management solutions to school districts.

In a statement, the company said that they continue to restore more websites and core functionality every hour.

The company said on Friday, “We are committed to a speedy and safe restoration. Our team is actively monitoring the performance and safety of our infrastructure, and we will continue to operate nights and weekends when until every site comes back online.” ,

Earlier this week, at least 8,000 schools globally hosted by FinalSight found they were no longer accessible or were displaying errors.

“Our team identified the presence of ransomware on certain systems in our environment,” the company said.

“We immediately took steps to secure our systems and control the activity. We immediately began investigating the incident with the help of third-party forensic experts, and began taking some systems offline.”

A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that 5,000 of its total 8,000 global customers — including school districts in Kansas City, Illinois and Missouri — are affected by the incident.

One Reddit user said that the incident also prevented some schools from sending email notifications about school closures due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Read also: Facebook’s parent Meta opens privacy center to educate users about data security

“Our team continues to make progress to restore functionality to websites,” the company said. Read also: Bank Holidays: Banks to be closed for 5 days next week; Check Important Dates

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