Taunton City Hall, schools dealing with internet outage. What we know
TAUNTON — Taunton City Hall and Taunton Public Schools have been experiencing ongoing computer network issues that have lasted more than a week.
Taunton Public Schools has been without internet since last Tuesday, March 11, according to a spokesperson for the District.
“Taunton Public Schools is thoroughly investigating the ongoing internet outage and will share confirmed findings once the root cause is identified.”
Separately, Mayor Shaunna O’Connell submitted a statement confirming that City of Taunton Departments have been dealing with network issues since yesterday, Tuesday, March 18, and they “are being reviewed and assessed by our IT professionals.”
Is it a cyber attack?
Neither the school district nor city hall have given any indication on whether or not the cause of the network outage is a cyberattack. Both entities have said the investigation is ongoing.
“We will not speculate until all facts are known,” said the district.
“As soon as further information is available, we will share it,” said O’Connell.
Business as usual
Taunton Public Schools said all important operations are still going.
“Our educators are continuing instruction without disruption, and district phones, the Parent Portal, and ParentSquare are fully operational. We are confident in our team’s work and will keep staff, caregivers, and the community informed.”
O’Connell stated that police and fire services haven’t been affected, City Hall remains open, and employee are continuing to do their jobs.
Prior municipal attacks
In July 2019, New Bedford City Hall was the victim of a computer virus, which later was confirmed to be a ransomware attack. Ransomware takes control of a computer system and encrypts data. Information is held hostage until officials can restore the system on their own or pay a ransom in exchange for a key to regain control of the system. The ransomware hit 158 desktop and laptop computers, or about 4% of computers used by New Bedford city employees across all departments, and it impacted the city government for weeks. It was reported the culprits had demanded $5.3 million from New Bedford. The city offered $400,000 from insurance proceeds but the attacker rejected the demand and made no counter-demand. The city then proceeded to recover its own data.
In July 2021, the Brockton Police Department was also the victim of a cyber attack, though it wasn’t ever confirmed if it was a ransomware attack.
In December 2022, Bristol Community College was the victim of a ransomware attack that affected the school’s internet, email and computer network for about a week.
At the time, information released to the public on these incidents was scarce due to officials being strongly advised by cyber professionals against providing details.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
With additional reporting from Emma Rindlisbacher
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