One of the biggest school districts in Iowa plans to shutter its doors again on Wednesday after canceling classes today due to a cyberattack.
On Monday, Des Moines Public Schools – which serves 30,000 students and has nearly 5,000 staff members – said it preemptively took the school district’s internet and network services offline in response to “unusual activity on the network.”
An investigation was started by the district’s IT staff as well as outside cybersecurity consultants, but access to the internet, WiFi, and various networked systems at school buildings and district offices was limited.
By Monday afternoon, the district decided to cancel classes for Tuesday.
“Because many technology tools that support both classroom learning as well as the management and operation of the school district are not available at this time, the prudent decision is to close the district for the day,” the district said in a statement, noting that some staff would be working remotely.
On Tuesday morning, the district said its network systems remained offline as they worked to resolve the disruption.
They said their goal is to “remove any and all threats” from their systems and to make sure all devices are “clean.” Access to systems with student information, educational programming, and numerous operational functions remained offline on Tuesday.
In an update, the district said it would be canceling classes again on Wednesday as they continue to work to restore systems. All activities and athletics would be canceled on Wednesday.
