APSD superintendent: 'We don't negotiate with terrorists'

Avoyelles Parish schools' phone, internet service down due to cyber-attack blackmail

The Avoyelles Parish School District's phone lines and internet service are still down this morning due to a cyber-attack blackmail attempt that occurred Thursday (Oct. 1).

"We have been 'cyber attacked,' Superintendent Blaine Dauzat said. "This appears to be similar to what occurred to about 20 school districts across the state last year."

The most important thing, he said, "is to let people know that nobody's personal information was compromised -- except, possibly, employees' passwords if they saved a password on the school computer. Student information is contained on a different server that was not involved in this attack."

Dauzat said recovery time "varies greatly." Some districts last year were back to normal within a few days. Others took weeks. Dauzat said he is optimistic that the system will be back to normal "best case by Tuesday and worst case by Friday" of next week.

"This is a crime and is currently under investigation by Louisiana State Police and the FBI," he added. While State Police are investigating the crime, the National Guard and state Department of Education are on-site to conduct the "data restoration" effort.

"They are calling it a 'scorched earth' scenario," Dauzat said. "Since they cannot trust that the system is not compromised, they will have to rebuild the entire network."

The attack also knocked out phone service to the schools because "our phones are on a 'voice over internet" system," the superintendent said. "That means when the internet is down, so are the phones."

Communication between the schools and Central Office will be restored by using "one old plug-in phone at each school," he said.

The cyber-crime drama began Thursday morning when Dauzat turned on his computer and saw a ransom note instructing the district to contact the blackmailers by email and demanding payment in bitcoin.

He does not know how much the blackmailers wanted "because we did not contact the email address they told us to. It's a case of 'We don't negotiate with terrorists.' The team from the state told me that demands from other entities our size range from $25,000 to $250,000. We don't know how much they would have demanded."

The previous school systems that were victimized also followed the no-negotiation policy and never asked how much the blackmailers wanted, Dauzat noted.

Students will not be held responsible for virtual assignments until the system is up and running properly, Dauzat said.

Also, until that happens, teachers are unable to host live lessons or post recorded ones.

Dauzat said students with internet access at home can work on lessons/assignments that had been posted before Thursday's attack.

The district will post updates on its Facebook page.

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