Ohio Weekly News Recap: The Columbus Dispatch’s Top Stories
Here are some stories you may have missed on Dispatch.com and in the print edition of the Columbus Dispatch.
The Ohio School Boards Association became the latest victim of a cyberattack on Thursday, forcing the organization, which represents more than 700 school boards across the state, to cut its connection to the internet.
According to a letter to members, OSBA CEO Kathy McFarland said the organization became aware of the attack on its online infrastructure on Thursday and immediately cut its connection to the Internet. “The network attack immediately impacted” normal operations and the services offered by the OSBA would be limited.
McFarland told The Dispatch that the cyberattack significantly impacted the OSBA’s work, especially at a critical time before the start of the school year in many districts across the state.
“School boards play such an important role in their district in terms of student success and achievement. Our job is to make sure they have everything they need,” McFarland said. “This attack has brought that to a halt. We are unable to do what we need to do.”
Since Friday, the OSBA’s emails and website have not been working.
McFarland said in the letter that the OSBA does not normally store sensitive personal information about its members.
“OSBA does not normally store sensitive personal information of its members, such as social security numbers or financial information, and we currently have no reason to believe that sensitive member data has been compromised,” McFarland said in the letter to members.
According to the letter, the OSBA has “engaged outside cyber consultants and IT forensic specialists to investigate the scope and cause of the incident and to assist us in our remediation efforts.” McFarland told The Dispatch that the cause of the cyberattack is still unclear.
The OSBA represents over 700 school boards in the state of Ohio and provides services such as board and leadership training, legal and policy services, and advocacy in the Ohio General Assembly.
The OSBA is just the latest organization or government in Ohio to be hit by a cybersecurity attack. The Dispatch reported last month that the city of Columbus was dealing with a cyber services outage caused by a cybersecurity incident the city discovered on July 18. The city was also forced to disconnect its internet connection and limit access to city services such as first responder dispatch services and email.
The Dispatch reported Thursday that Rhysida, the group responsible for the cyberattack, had begun posting stolen data from the city of Columbus’ servers on the dark web after putting it up for auction. The cybercriminals had blackmailed the city of Columbus with the data theft, threatening to make a massive amount of stolen information public unless someone bought it on the dark web for around $1.7 million by Wednesday morning.
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