Ransom virus infects LSHS
Computer hack slows productivity
Prior to Winter Break, Lake Stevens School District experienced a significant computer virus.. It came through the laptop of an Information Technology staff member, who had access to administrative rights. Because of this, the virus spread to all school computers. It’s known as a “ransom” virus, which makes files useless to us and encrypts them.
“Once we were able to identify the virus, we were able to protect the backup of our servers which were recently reinstalled to our network. The loss of files was extremely minimal. No staff or student information was accessed or compromised,” Jayme Taylor, Director of Communications at Lake Stevens School District said.
As of January 9
All computers, including these in the yearbook class were shut down when the virus was first discovered. The IT Department soon found that only Windows computers were affected. “It was more of a inconvenience than anything” said Caitlynn Glenn.
, “99 percent of all Windows computers have been cleared for network use,” which means students and staff can use school computers with no trouble.
All Chrome and Apple products were not affected by the ransom virus, just the Windows systems. However, the virus not only affected teachers and administrators, but students as well. Any student who uses the school computers to do anything were affected and couldn’t do much.
“It was just kind of frustrating. Obviously, I couldn’t do any work at school, and we couldn’t upload pictures or anything in photography. It was more of an inconvenience than anything,” senior and yearbook staff member Caitlyn Glenn said.
Because students couldn’t do their normal daily work in certain classes, they also got behind in class. Some teachers had to change plans and reschedule lessons. . “We had to stop all work for about a week and a half, and that’s a long time. Nobody could log in to the internet or computers unless we had previously logged in,” sophomore Troy Elmer said.
The lack of computer access made it hard to continue with regular school life. Although the virus got in the first time, the school district has made every effort to protect its servers from a similar virus.
“We continue to monitor all of our servers and protections to ensure that our systems remain safe. We continue to communicate with authorities and other impacted organizations to learn more about this virus and how we can stay safe,” Taylor said.
Although the school suffered a mini-crisis when the virus hit, it has been resolved and computer use is back to normal at Lake Stevens High School.
