By Chelsey Sellars | February 21, 2020 at 6:03 PM CST – Updated February 21 at 6:24 PM
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – Jackson Public Schools have been locked out of their computer network by hackers.
Superintendent Errick Greene said the district’s cyber team has been checking every computer and printer for other threats since February 6th.
“We’ve just been very very intentional about not having folks use all of the devices that we have throughout the district as you might imagine with 23,000 scholars and with about 4,000 employees, we’ve got lots of devices,” said Greene.
Greene said none of the school’s data was stolen. However without access to their data, teachers have had to teach without their computers.
“Working with the FBI. We’ve also reached out to the Army Corp of Engineers… How do we ensure that we are safe to move forward? And even looking at additional protocols and precautions that we might us in the future,” said Greene.
The IT department has temporarily shut down their system as they investigate the hack. We asked JPS Spokesperson Sherwin Johnson if this is a case of ransomware.
In a statement he said, “we have not participated or engaged in any negotiations with any entity related to a ransom.” But, he did not say that no ransom had been demanded.
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