Following a cyberattack that attacked the district's attendance, communications, and transportation systems, all 144 Albuquerque Public Schools are closed for the remainder of this week, according to APS's announcement on mid-day Thursday.
APS is one of the 50 largest school districts in the country, with around 74,000 students.
District IT staff discovered the problem on Wednesday, and APS posted a statement on its website and Twitter account that afternoon stating, “All Albuquerque Public Schools will be closed Thursday, Jan. 13, due to a cyberattack that has compromised some systems that could impact teaching, learning, and student safety. … The district is working with contracted professionals to fix the problem.”
"The district continues to examine a cyberattack that affected the student information system used to take attendance, contact families in emergencies, and ensure that students are picked up from school by authorised people," APS stated online on Thursday afternoon and cancelled classes for Friday.
APS said it will reopen schools on Tuesday, Jan. 18, after being closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, specifying that administrative offices stayed open.
The attack was detected Wednesday morning when instructors attempted to enter onto the student information system and were unable to obtain access to the site, according to APS Superintendent Scott Elder in a brief statement uploaded to the district's APS Technology YouTube page.
Elder further stated, “APS is working with local and national law enforcement as well as teams of cyber specialists to as quickly as possible limit our exposure to this attack, to protect all systems in our network and ensure a safe environment to return to school and business as usual.”
He noted that the district's IT department had been "mitigating attacks" in recent weeks.
A spokeswoman told the Albuquerque Journal she was sceptical about what kind of attack it was and said she didn’t know whether those responsible had demanded a ransom.
