RansomHub claims responsibility for cyber attack on Charleston County School District, SC

This morning, ransomware gang RansomHub claimed responsibility for a recent cyber attack on Charleston County School District, South Carolina. The School District noted ‘suspicious activity’ and system disruption on July 26. Students were able to return to class as planned on August 13.

The School District has yet to provide an official statement on the nature of this incident so we do not know if RansomHub’s claims are true, how the attack on the systems happened, or whether any data was exfiltrated. Comparitech has contacted it for more details and will update the article if it responds.

In the meantime, we highly recommended students and employees of CCSD remain vigilant for any potential phishing messages and monitor accounts for any suspicious activity.

Who is RansomHub?

RansomHub employs a ransomware-as-a-service model and has recently been linked to the now-defunct ransomware group, Knight. RansomHub has grown in notoriety in recent months, being behind some of the biggest ransomware attacks this year so far. This includes its attack on Rite Aid, the auction house Christie’s, Florida Department of Health, and Frontier Communications Parent, Inc.

To date, we have noted 27 confirmed and 157 unconfirmed attacks via RansomHub.

Ransomware attacks on US schools & colleges

So far this year, we’ve tracked 35 confirmed attacks on the US education sector. This appears to be a significant decline on last year’s figure of 120 in total.

Nevertheless, this latest attack on Charleston County School District joins a number of others confirmed in recent months. This includes Goshen Central School District, Northwest Arkansas Community College, Effingham County Schools, and Gadsden Independent School District. RansomHub was also responsible for the attack on Effingham County Schools.

We have also logged 47 unconfirmed attacks on US schools and colleges this year so far–three of which are claims from RansomHub.

About Charleston County School District

Located within Charleston County, South Carolina, CCSD is home to 80 schools and educates approximately 50,000 students from kindergarten to 12th grade.