A group of schools in the East Midlands have been temporarily blocked from remote teaching after a serious cyber attack forced a shutdown of their IT infrastructure.
The Nova Education Trust, which oversees 23 schools in the region, has published a statement from its chief executive officer Ashfaq Rahman that its IT network was subject to unauthorised access on Wednesday 3 March.
This prompted it to shut down its IT systems as a security precaution, preventing it from supporting remote teaching or uploading new resources for students.
But it said it has quickly restored access to its email system and Microsoft Team to restore online learning, and that all of its schools’ websites are now back online.
The trust said that so far there is no indication of any breach of personal data.
"We are continuing to work closely with experts from the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Crime Agency to evaluate the origin of the attack and expedite the recovery process,” Rahman said.
“Our central IT team and in-school technicians will be continuing with the restoration of the infrastructure for the remainder of this week and throughout the weekend, aiming to ensure that IT provision is in place for when our students return next week.”
Image from iStock, SolarSeven
