Cyber Attacks target Hebrew School, Baltimore County
Amanda Silver ‘21 Staff Writer
On December 14, North Shore Hebrew Academy High School, located in Great Neck, New York, was caught by surprise when their school website was hacked. Students and parents were sent emails encouraging them to look at the school’s updated website. According to a Jewish News Syndicate article, “The North Shore Logo was changed to a swastika; the background image was modified to show a Nazi concentration camp; and the school name was changed to North Shore Hebrew Concentration Camp.”
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Students who attended the school were then flooded with even more emails that exposed various personal information from other school attendees, such as their addresses, credit card numbers and photo identification. Many of the emails included anti-Semitic images, songs and video clips of marching Nazi SS guards, along with threats to the students. The school ended up shutting down their website completely and changing all of the school’s emails. Law enforcement did get involved to investigate the cause of the incident, but nothing has been identified yet. Subsequently, students and parents were devastated by what had happened. The school made the decision to cancel classes for the week and take down their school website until further notice, as well as offer the students emotional support counseling during class time.
What happened to North Shore Hebrew Academy High School was not the first case of a cyber attack. Before the attack on North Shore Hebrew Academy High School, Baltimore County Public Schools were shut down because someone had hacked into the school system’s computers. “We got an email from our principal letting us know that Schoology, our platform for holding classes, was down… We really didn’t know what was going on. Slowly we heard information from watching the news that told us there may have been a ransomware attack,” says Kevin Applegate, a history teacher at Eastern Tech. He then explained, “My computer was running at 11:00 p.m. that night when the ransomware attack occurred, completely frying my computer…. The biggest impact then was getting the computers back up to date and making sure everything is protected with new anti virus software…. It’s a shame that the same thing happened last year…. They take your information and hold it ransom, and then make you pay money. It’s a crazy business model that is hard to protect against.” These cyber attacks threaten the safety and privacy of the students who are attending online classes.
These two incidents of cyber attacks present the possibility of more occurring throughout virtual schooling. Howard County Public Schools should be prepared for one to happen at any moment. Principal Nick Novak says, “We need to be aware of when there is an issue or problem and report it…. I have learned from the ransomware that they had been in the system for a long time… so anytime you see something strange you should report it to the teachers or our media staff.” He continues, “ We also have to be careful about what we are putting online… The stuff we put out online can help compromise us, so we have to be careful how many things we are putting on the internet.”
Howard County is doing what they can to ensure students’ safety and is improving the security of online schooling everyday. Mr. Novak also states, “It used to be that as soon as you got into a meeting, you just joined it. A lot of people were sharing codes…. Quick access control makes it so teachers have to let the students in and if they didn’t recognize a student then they wouldn’t let them in. Google did expand the host controls to where now you can remove someone from the meet and once they’re kicked out, they stay out.” As technology advances, so does the risk of cyber attacks. Counties around the country are learning from these recent attacks to improve their students’ safety and security while virtual learning takes place.
What happened to North Shore Hebrew Academy High School was not the first case of a cyber attack. Before the attack on North Shore Hebrew Academy High School, Baltimore County Public Schools were shut down because someone had hacked into the school system’s computers. “We got an email from our principal letting us know that Schoology, our platform for holding classes, was down… We really didn’t know what was going on. Slowly we heard information from watching the news that told us there may have been a ransomware attack,” says Kevin Applegate, a history teacher at Eastern Tech. He then explained, “My computer was running at 11:00 p.m. that night when the ransomware attack occurred, completely frying my computer…. The biggest impact then was getting the computers back up to date and making sure everything is protected with new anti virus software…. It’s a shame that the same thing happened last year…. They take your information and hold it ransom, and then make you pay money. It’s a crazy business model that is hard to protect against.” These cyber attacks threaten the safety and privacy of the students who are attending online classes.
These two incidents of cyber attacks present the possibility of more occurring throughout virtual schooling. Howard County Public Schools should be prepared for one to happen at any moment. Principal Nick Novak says, “We need to be aware of when there is an issue or problem and report it…. I have learned from the ransomware that they had been in the system for a long time… so anytime you see something strange you should report it to the teachers or our media staff.” He continues, “ We also have to be careful about what we are putting online… The stuff we put out online can help compromise us, so we have to be careful how many things we are putting on the internet.”
Howard County is doing what they can to ensure students’ safety and is improving the security of online schooling everyday. Mr. Novak also states, “It used to be that as soon as you got into a meeting, you just joined it. A lot of people were sharing codes…. Quick access control makes it so teachers have to let the students in and if they didn’t recognize a student then they wouldn’t let them in. Google did expand the host controls to where now you can remove someone from the meet and once they’re kicked out, they stay out.” As technology advances, so does the risk of cyber attacks. Counties around the country are learning from these recent attacks to improve their students’ safety and security while virtual learning takes place.