Cyber attack shuts Nuneaton school for a few days

A school in Nuneaton has been forced to shut after a cyber attack affected parts of its IT systems.

Higham Lane School, which has about 1,400 pupils aged 11 – 18 and is part of Central England Academy Trust, shut on Monday while investigations took place and is expected to stay shut until Wednesday.

A statement from the academy said the closure is a “precautionary measure” and update will be provided to families on Tuesday.

It said steps are being taken to manage the incident and restore the systems safely and as quickly as possible. It added relevant authorities have been notified, and the school was cooperating fully with all appropriate agencies.

The school said as soon as it was are of the incident, it began incident response protocols – “including securing systems and engaging independent cyber security specialists to investigate.”

“As a precautionary measure, the school is currently closed while investigations and remediation activities are undertaken.

“An update will be provided to families tomorrow, and it would be inappropriate to speculate further at this time.

“The school takes the privacy and security of its community seriously. As this matter remains under investigation, no further comment can be made at this time.”

A letter to parents said the “difficult decision” was taken following advice from external experts.

The school said it is working closely with external agencies, including a Cyber Incident Response Team from the Department for Education, as well as IT experts from the trust.

It asked students not to log into any school systems, including Google Classroom and SharePoint, until further notice.

The letter said: “If students have already logged into any school systems that require their school login details, they should not worry.

“However, to ensure maximum safety while investigations continue, both staff and students are being asked not to access any school systems until we know more.”