At the December meeting of the Pulaski County School Board, Superintendent of Schools Mr. Robert Graham called the members of the PCPS Information Technology (IT) Department to the front for a special recognition.
"On November 5, 2023, the PCPS Department of Information Technology was alerted to suspicious activity affecting our network. We launched an immediate investigation to determine the nature and scope of the activity. As part of our response, PCPS engaged leading outside cybersecurity experts to investigate the nature and scope of this activity and remediate the incident. It quickly became apparent that PCPS was the victim of a ransomware attack.
In this matter, cybercriminals accessed servers in the PCPS environment and encrypted them. Fortunately, we successfully prevented the ransomware from compromising the physical security of our classrooms or otherwise disrupting the ongoing learning of our students. However, the cybercriminals claim to have removed certain data from our servers. Generally, when this happens to school systems, they have to close for a extended period of time. Pulaski County Schools did not have to do that because of the efforts of an outstanding instructional technology (IT) department. The PCPS IT department worked tirelessly to ensure that all schools could stay open. I would imaging the entire group of IT employees worked 100 hours plus above and beyond their regular contracted time in order to ensure that our schools were safe enough and our teachers had the resources they need so students could come to school and continue to learn in an instructionally sound environment.
I am grateful for the effort the IT staff has made to make this difficult and challenging situation manageable. Not once did I every hear any of them complain about the extra work they put in to keep our system functioning at a high level despite this disruption. They are talented and skilled employees who care greatly for our students, teachers and school community members. We are thankful for their dedication and commitment to this special school division!"
