The Pascagoula-Gautier School District was targeted by a criminal ransomware attack on Oct. 20, 2020.

“The PGSD immediately began an investigation and notified law enforcement and the Mississippi Department of Education,” said PGSD Supt. Wayne Rodolfich. “Our Information Systems Department worked to restore affected systems and devices. Devices were scanned, and malware removed.”

A joint investigation was conducted with the PGSD Information Systems Department and the Miss. Army National Guard Cyber which determined servers containing financial and child nutrition records were not comprised or extracted.

“The investigation did determine that a server containing student data was comprised, but did not include any social security numbers. The investigation was inconclusive as to whether any student data was taken or whether other data was taken from the PGSD network, and no ransom was paid,” Rodolfich said.