Do you know what's scary? Public school districts are often hacked by ransomware. In fact, it happens across the United States about 100 times a year in the last 4 years. Now, Minnesota's third-largest school district has had to notify families that their student's information has been exposed.

According to MPR, it appears that the Medusa ransomware group used ransomware to double extort the school district. What happens is the ransomware locks the district out of systems and threatens the school district to pay a ton of money or they will release the information to the dark web. In this case, it appears to be a million dollars.

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Minneapolis School District Affected

The most recent case was in Minnesota's third-largest school district: The Minneapolis School District. Officials from the school notified staff, students, and families that private information had been hacked and posted online, although they didn't say what kind of data was posted or where it was posted on the dark web.

Pay $1 Million By March 17, or $50,000 for an extension.

The gang gave the school district until March 17 to pay 1 million dollars. If they want to extend a day, they can pay another $50,000. They posted a 51-minute video online to Vimeo where they shared some of the sensitive information.

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The video was removed, but it appeared to have sensitive information including sexual violence allegations, financial information about the district, civil rights investigations, maltreatment, and sex offender notifications.

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Posting a video isn't often used, according to The 74, but experts believe this is a new tactic to increase the likelihood that a district will pay.

The district says they have not paid any ransom and are working with the police and investigators to identify who has been compromised and impacted by the attack. The school district has notified all families about the situation.

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Minnesota School District Student's Information Hacked + Extorted With Million Dollar Ransom

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