OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. – The South Lyon Community School District will not have classes until Wednesday, due to a cyberattack on the district.
“We’re a little concerned, and we’re all questioning it,” said Jennifer Lukas, a parent.
--> Cybersecurity incident shuts down South Lyon Community School District for second day
Lukas is one of the parents in the South Lyon School District, taken aback by the fact that school wasn’t in session on Monday (Sept. 15).
“We just got emails and text messages. So, I found out about this late last night,” Lukas said.
According to a message sent out by the district to parents, the issue is due to a cyberattack that’s currently being handled.
“Why wouldn’t they not be allowed to go to school because of a cyber attack? If there was a threat made, I understand that. That’s what the parents want to know. Was there a threat made against the entire school district?” Lukas asked.
Local 4 has been informed that it’s a complete network outage, with none of the phones or computers in the district working.
Pretty much anything that connects to the internet has been disabled.
Auxiom IT CEO Matt Loria said he has an idea of what school officials are doing behind the scenes.
“Chances are they’ve brought their It staff. They’ve probably brought in some external cybersecurity experts, legal advisors, and leadership, and have established what we call an instant response team,” said Loria.
As that team tries to reverse the issue, there is a chance the Attack may not have been fully directed at the district.
“It doesn’t take a whole lot for these attackers. They’ve got AI systems to that are essentially out there trolling and looking for those weak links. But sometimes all it takes is just someone clicking on the wrong link,” Loria said.
Lukas just wants her son back in school as soon as possible.
“They sent us all an email letting us know we were closed today, then, probably at four or five o’clock today, they let us know they were gonna be closed tomorrow. They said that it could go on for a few days. So there’s really no answer on when kids will go back to school,” Lukas concluded.