What is Ransomware?

Ransomware is increasingly being used by hackers to extort money from school districts. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that takes over your computer and prevents you from accessing files until you pay a ransom.

Although we maintain controls to help protect our networks and computers from this type of attack, with the quickly changing attack scenarios we rely on you to be our first line of defense.

Here are some simple things you can do to help Lyford CISD avoid a ransomware/malware attack:

Think Before You Click

The most common way ransomware enters networks is through email. Often, scammers will include malicious links or attachments in emails that look harmless. To avoid this trap, please observe the following email best practices:

• Do not click on links or attachments from senders that you do not recognize. Be especially wary of .zip or other compressed or executable file types.
• Do not provide sensitive personal information (like usernames and passwords) over email.
• Watch for email senders that use suspicious or misleading domain names.
• If you can’t tell if an email is legitimate or not, please “When in Doubt THROW it OUT”.
• Be especially cautious when opening attachments or clicking links if you receive an email containing a warning banner indicating that it originated from an external source.

If Something Seems Wrong, Notify IT immediately