Spring Lake Park district cancels school after cyberattack

Spring Lake Park schools are closed Monday after a cyberattack, according to an announcement from the district.

In a notice on its website, the district says its technology team discovered on Sunday that an outside actor had accessed internal school systems. Staff shut down those systems to prevent any further access, and some are still down. The district says those systems are “needed to safely have school.”

Classes are canceled for the north Metro district’s 6,000 students. Child care, after-school activities and community education programs are also canceled.

The hack came a week after a similar incident in Winona County, where a cyberattack led to a shutdown of the county’s main IT system. It was the latest in a growing number of attacks against local governments’ technology systems.

The district is working with a third-party cybersecurity team and law enforcement to fix the problem and said it plans to update students and families Monday.

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