Malware attack brings down Fort Worth ISD computer system

FORT WORTH, Texas - Fort Worth ISD is hoping spring break will give them the opportunity to recover from a malware attack.

The district's main computer server was attacked Monday and the disruption has somewhat affected the day-to-day activities in classrooms of more than 84,000 students and 11,000 staff.

It has affected teachers’ abilities to do things like take attendance or use online teaching tools. However, Fort Worth ISD said no student, teacher or staff members’ personal information was stolen.

"We're getting hit from countries around the world as I said earlier most big corporations are and we're a large organization," said FWISD spokesman Clint Bond.

The FWISD it team identified and isolated the districtwide attack and also opted to shut down the district’s website.

"Right now we have no reason to believe any staff or student information has been compromised,” Bond said.

Fort Worth police and the FBI are involved with investigating just how the cyberattack happened.

Teachers have been manually taking attendance and teaching without the internet.

On Thursday, the district sent a memo to its staff asking them to unplug the ethernet cable on hard-wired systems as an added step in the process to recover from the hacking.

"As we bring certain systems back online we have to make sure those are clean and haven't been infected and wont re-infect something,” Bond said.

District officials also plan on a new cyber education plan, detailing what suspicious emails look like and protocol on opening attachments from unknown senders.

There’s no set timetable on a complete restoration of the districts systems, only that the upcoming spring break is good timing to make sure everything is back in order.

"I heard a great analogy this morning -- somebody broke into our house, now what we've got to do is rearrange the walls inside the house so they don't know how to get around.”