Crisis averted! Cyber firefighters help school swerve ‘substantial’ ransom

Wednesday 11 January 2023

The head of Jersey’s new cyber firefighting team is urging islanders never to pay ransom to digital criminals after his squad successfully helped a local school swerve having to pay a ‘substantial’ sum to avoid system shutdown.

Shortly before Christmas, De La Salle College confirmed it was dealing with a ‘ransomware’ incident – which usually involves an attacker preventing its target from accessing its own digital information before offering to return it at a cost.

At the time, the school said that data had been “encrypted”, that it had no access to its own systems and that it had “received a ransomware request”. Express understands that the ransom demand was for a substantial amount.

De La Salle’s Assistant Head Teacher, Tim Silvester, has since confirmed that the issues with the college’s IT system were resolved in time for the start of the academic term. He said that staff are continuing “to work with the appropriate authorities regarding the incident”.

Key to the recovery effort was coordination with CERT. Director Matt Palmer spoke to Express about resolving the major attack, and the persistent threat of Russian cyber warfare, on the latest episode of the Bailiwick Podcast…

Read the JEP tomorrow for a fuller interview with Matt Palmer… Special offer: Subscribe to the digital edition in January for just £9.99 - click here to access this deal.