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PHILIPPI – Barbour County Schools announced on Wednesday that it is investigating a “potential cybersecurity incident,” and that internet connectivity across the district had been temporarily disabled since Friday.
The issue arose after compromising emails were sent throughout the county school system last week, officials said.
“We had some strange emails coming to our accounts and when you get those types of emails, you don’t know what they are and you don’t click on them,” Barbour County School’s Superintendent Eddie Vincent told The Inter-Mountain Wednesday. “We were getting those and trying to trace them and trying to figure out what the problem was. We just didn’t want to get into a situation where we had real major issues, so we shut it down until we found out what the problem was and how to fix it.”
A press release sent out by the school district on Wednesday stated, “Upon learning of the activity, the district promptly began an investigation and engaged outside forensic specialists to assist.”
Vincent told The Inter-Mountain Wednesday that he had reached out to the State Board of Education when he learned about the issue, He said the state requested that "we shut it down until we figure out what the problem is."
“Our guys got nervous and decided to call the state department,” Vincent said. “They told us to shut it down until we figure out what the problem is. So they shut us down and they are just making sure now that there are no issues before I tell them to turn it back on.”
Vincent said Barbour County personnel caught the issue early. He noted that the internet shutdown was being done as a precautionary measure and that, to his knowledge, “there is no significant threat.”
“It’s a potential cybersecurity incident and when we learned about this we engaged in a conversation with people who know what they are doing with this,” Vincent said. “So we shut it down until we are 100% sure there are no security issues… I really commend our tech guys for figuring out there was an issue early and taking the steps to provide security.”
The Wednesday press release stated that all public schools and their facilities in Barbour County remain open, and that all classes are proceeding as scheduled.
“In the meantime, we are back to teaching and learning before technology, which isn’t always a bad thing,” Vincent said. “I’ve been all over the county this week and there are some great things going on.”