RACINE — Over the past week, students and staff in the Racine Unified School District (RUSD) have been wondering why they were forced to go offline.
RUSD told TMJ4 News that an “issue affecting the operability of its network environment” was detected. Staff are currently investigating to “determine the nature and extent of the problem and work to restore affected systems as quickly as possible.”
Parents feel disconnected.
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“If it’s the whole district, what’s going on? It worries me,” said Joan Larson, a grandmother whom TMJ4’s Ryan Jenkins met while picking up her grandchildren at Roosevelt Elementary School.
The week-long internet outage occurred the last week before the district’s winter break.
“If it’s a real cyberattack or something like that, let the parents know so we can be aware of it because it can spread anywhere,” said Joshua Stinson, a father of two students in RUSD schools.
While some ignore technological issues by posting comments on social media such as “Many of us went to school before the Internet was invented”, others share their concerns with comments such as “C “It’s a safety issue.”
Watch: Parents want answers as ‘technology problems’ persist in Racine schools
Parents concerned about continued technology issues in Racine schools
A woman asked TMJ4 News for an update saying the whole situation “seems strange.”
TMJ4 Lighthouse reporter Ryan Jenkins spent a week trying to get more information from the RUSD communications team.
“It’s like it’s been a week and they’re saying ‘it’s just something’s wrong’ but really what we’ve heard is that it’s a hack – and as parents, we hear things too,” Stinson said.
RUSD spokesperson Stacy Tapp only released the following statement:
“RUSD has detected an issue that has affected the operability of its network environment. We are currently investigating to determine the nature and extent of the issue and are working to restore affected systems as quickly as possible. As our investigation into this matter is ongoing , we are unable to restore affected systems as quickly as possible to provide further details. We are grateful to our incredible teachers and support staff who have changed, as they do so well, to continue teaching. and to learn in our schools And we thank our community. for your patience as we work to resolve these issues.
When Jenkins specifically asked whether the network had been hacked or attacked, he was told that RUSD was unable to provide additional details.
Attempts to reach the Board of Education president were unsuccessful Friday.
The Racine Police Department and the Racine County Sheriff’s Office both say they do not investigate technology issues.
The FBI has not confirmed whether an investigation is underway and has sharedThese tips to protect yourself from Ransomware threats.
Still without an answer, TMJ4 turned to cybersecurity expert Alex Holden, owner of Hold Security.
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“As time goes on, we entrust more and more information to our schools and everything becomes computerized,” Holden said. “So over time we begin to store more information, including personal information about faculty and students, including some reports about children’s health or other conditions, and obviously about grades and d ‘other information.’
Holden said that while cyber threats are always a concern, those involving minors can be even more distressing.
“We’ve seen cases where bad guys exploit children’s information much further than would be reasonable,” he said.
Holden points out that since RUSD has kept schools open over the past week, there are likely no physical safety threats to worry about.
“If there is a physical threat, schools would react differently, at least in my experience. But if there is a cyber threat, we can find out later what really happened,” he said. he declared.
Parents and teachers tell TMJ4 they want to know what’s causing these technology issues and if any of their sensitive personal data is at risk.
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