U.S. 6th largest school district compromised by ransomware, rumored to have paid more than $500,000 in ransom

The 6th largest school district in the United States, Florida Broward County Public Schools (Broward County Public Schools) computer system was hacked by ransomware, the hackers initially demanded $40 million ransom, and now it is rumored that after bargaining the school district to $500,000 to get out of trouble.

According to the Associated Press, the Broward County Public Schools were compromised by ransomware in early March, and the computer system once stopped functioning, but did not affect teaching. The school district has 271,000 students and an annual budget of $4 billion, which is why the hackers demanded a high ransom.

Broward County Public Schools noted that they have worked with Internet security experts and there is no indication that any personal information was stolen, and the school district has refused to pay the ransom. However, as you can see from the hacker’s conversation posted on the dark web, the school district did agree to pay $500,000 after 2 weeks of haggling.

The captures show that after initially offering $40 million, the hackers agreed to negotiate with the school district to reduce the price to the equivalent of $15 million in bitcoin, but to pay within 24 hours or their personal information would be made public and the computer system would be permanently blocked.

In response, representatives of the school district said in a conversation that they still couldn’t afford it and refused to pay in bitcoin, while hackers threatened to get their hands on information about a royal family in the school district in hopes of getting Bulova County Public Schools to cave in, but the negotiators responded, “What do you mean, royal family? We’re a public school district.”

After 2 weeks of back and forth, the hackers agreed to lower the ransom to $10 million, but the school district still replied that it could only pay $500,000, which is what the hackers posted in the capture above.

In fact, U.S. public schools have been the target of ransomware attacks, with school districts in Maryland, Connecticut, and Texas being repeatedly compromised last year. Emsisoft analyst Brett Callow pointed out that a total of 1,681 schools across the United States were affected by hackers last year, and so far this year there have been 544 cases, of which seven cases were made public personal information.

Generally speaking, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will investigate such cases, but the FBI said on the 1st, they will not state whether the case has been launched to investigate.