Cyber attack in Albuquerque latest to target public schools

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — When the superintendent of Albuquerque Public Schools announced earlier this week a cyber attack would lead to the cancellation of classes for around 75,000 students, he noted that the district’s technology department had been fending off attacks “for the last few weeks.”

Albuquerque is not alone, as five school districts in the state have suffered major cyber attacks in the past two years, including one district that's still wrestling with a cyber attack that hit just after Christmas.

But it's the first reporting a cyber attack that required cancellation of classes, all the more disruptive as schools try to keep in-person learning going during the pandemic.

“If it seems I’ve come into your homes a lot in the past couple of years to share difficult news, you’re right. And here I am again,” Superintendent Scott Elder said in a video address Thursday. “We find ourselves facing yet another challenge.”

The closures, on Thursday and Friday, affect approximately one in five New Mexico schoolchildren, in what is the country’s 35th largest school district by enrollment, according to 2019 data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The district was one of the last in the state to reopen last year as vaccines became available.

The small town of Truth or Consequences discovered a cyber attack on Dec. 28, and still hasn't gained control of its computer systems.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Mike Torres, the information technology director of the school system in Truth or Consequences, a small town in central New Mexico.

The attack has not been previously reported. It came when students were on vacation, allowing time to make contingency plans before students returned. Torres says that while the attack “made computer systems...