Cyberattackers encrypt Community College of Beaver County's data and demand ransom payments

The Community College of Beaver County is under a cyberattack, with unknown bad actors encrypting all college data and demanding ransom payments to lift it. 

"We came to campus this morning, the first day of spring break, and our IT department notified us that they received a ransom note and that we had been under cyberattack," said Leslie Tennant, CCBC's vice president of communications.    

The so-called ransomware attack has encrypted, or completely blocked, the college from using its computer systems. It's now unable to access things like grades, transcripts and all of the college's financial information. 

Cybersecurity experts say that, as the name suggests, ransomware can hold an entire system hostage.  

"It's like breaking into a building, locking all the file cabinets and demanding money for the keys back. In this case, they've locked down the computer network and they're demanding payment to unlock the computer network," said Paul Lauttamus from AV Lauttamus Security.

On Monday, behind closed doors, the college administration began discussions with its insurance company, which will try to determine the identity of the attackers and attempt to lift the encryption before a decision is made on whether to pay the ransom.

But Lauttimas says the threat actors are generally overseas and difficult to track down. 

"They can be from in the homeland, but in most cases, they are terrorist states that have conflict with the United States," he said. 

In the meantime, the college put out an alert not to use laptops or other devices on campus, which may be vulnerable to attack. 

"We have currently locked down all IT resources. No one is to be using their computers, logging into VPN, even from home. As of 9:30 this morning, we closed the campus," Tennant said on Monday.

"Our goal is to work through this process to ensure that our students and our employees and all their information is protected," Tennant added. 

School is scheduled to reopen next Monday, giving CCBC a week to wrest its data from these cyber attackers. Without it, classes cannot resume.