LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Little Rock School District has disclosed that it made a negotiation with hackers who launched a ransomware attack against the district's computer network.
On Monday night, the LRSD board voted 6-3 to allow the superintendent to enter a "settlement agreement" in order to try and resolve the network issue.
School Board President, Greg Adams, explained that the situation has been frustrating, but now they can focus on fixing the root of what let someone do this.
"Trying to understand the vulnerabilities that are in our system," he said. "So that we can address those to really try to minimize the chance of anything like this ever happening again."
Upon discovering the hack, the school district hired experts to help diagnose and contain the problem.
Experts explained that "some data was taken" but they didn't know what it was.
The district stated that they were told to not make a public announcement regarding the attack when it happened because it could have potentially made things worse.
Director of Cyber Security Research and Assistant Professor at UALR, Philip Huff, said this isn't uncommon— especially for schools.
"We're prepared for all sorts of disasters that occur in the school, but not many people think about what happens if someone in a faraway country holds our student's data for ransom, then what do we do?" he said. "And we really need to be having those conversations."
There are many questions regarding what this means, but the district also stated that they can't answer every question just yet.
The district has promised to release additional information as soon as it is possible but they cannot exactly say how long it will take.