The school said on social media that it is working with law enforcement to investigate the attack and that it wasn’t sure whether any personal information had been exposed.
Lori Hall, a spokesperson for the college, said the security breach was no longer underway on Monday morning, but many of Clackamas Community College’s systems are still offline as investigators work to make sure the threat is no longer in the school’s systems. The college’s learning platform, Moodle, is offline and many students and staff don’t have email access, Hall said. In-person student services are still available on campus.
Amid the ongoing investigation, Hall would not discuss what type of security breach occurred. The college will notify students and staff if it discovers there was any breach of personal information, Hall said. It has created a website to update the campus on the status of the investigation.
This is at least the second crippling cyber attack against schools in the Portland area in the last year, as cybersecurity groups warn that ransomware attacks in the education sector are on the rise.
Lewis & Clark College was hit in the spring of 2023 with a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks happen when cyber criminals use software to prevent a company or government agency from accessing computer systems or threaten to publish personal data unless the agency pays a ransom. Cyber crime group Vice Society reportedly claimed credit for the Lewis & Clark attack.
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