‘It’s affected everything’: cyberattack could impact Manitoba school division’s report cards, exams

‘It’s affected everything’: cyberattack could impact Manitoba school division's report cards, exams

Maggie Macintosh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

Teachers, students and support staff in the Pembina Trails School Division remain without Wi-Fi more than a week after a cyberattack resulted in a network-wide outage.

Among many disruptions in recent days, phone lines temporarily went down, laptops were declared “corrupted” and educators have been asked to put files onto USB sticks in order to use photocopiers because the internet is inaccessible.

Supt. Shelley Amos told principals Tuesday that the board office recognizes schools cannot operate as usual and employees are doing their best to deliver lessons and programs, per internal correspondence obtained by the Free Press.

“The kids can’t do their assignments or anything (online). We’re trying to go back to ‘old school’ with paper. There’s no bells,” said an educational assistant who agreed to an interview on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution at work.

The EA said their workplace’s intercom also remains out of order.

It’s not clear whether report cards will be released on time and exam schedules will carry on as planned, the employee added.

“It’s affected everything in the division in one way or another,” said Craig Stahlke, vice-chairman of the board of trustees that oversees classrooms in Fort Richmond, Waverley West and surrounding communities in south Winnipeg.

Stahlke said he and his trustee colleagues are expecting an update about the situation at a board meeting scheduled Thursday at 8 p.m.

Pembina Trails’ information technology team initially flagged suspicious activity on internal computer systems in the morning on Dec. 2. Before long, IT systems and telephone lines were down across the division.

Senior administration has launched a public webpage on pembinatrails.ca to keep community members up to date on the initial incident and subsequent probe.

“Our investigation into the Dec. 2 incident is continuing. Our priorities remain minimizing impact on learning and safeguarding our students’ and staff’s information,” Amos said in a mass email to community members announcing the new notification page.

Cybersecurity professionals were tapped to investigate the situation as it unfolded, but Amos — who started work in the division in August — has indicated it could take weeks or months to find out what happened and uncover exactly what information was involved.

Meantime, the board office has reassured families and employees that there is no indication of a data breach involving their personal information.

The division does not store financial records on its student information system and international student data is recorded on a distinct platform that was not affected by the recent incident, per Pembina Trails headquarters.

Lise Legal, president of the Pembina Trails Teachers’ Association, declined to comment on specifics.

“Members are performing superhuman work to help get through this,” Legal said.

The local of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society represents about 1,200 certified educators in Winnipeg. There are upwards of 16,700 students registered across 36 schools in the division.

In a formal statement on behalf of the school board, chairwoman Cindy Nachtigall acknowledged the resiliency of employees and thanked other school divisions for offering “a variety of supports” to Pembina Trails.

“Thursday’s board meeting will be in person with no livestream, as we have asked administration to make classroom learning the priority in restoring technology systems,” Nachtigall said in an email.

While noting restoration work is ongoing, the Ward 3 trustee said some systems have been recovered.

The majority of school phone lines were up and running within 24 hours of the cyberattack.

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