NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Hackers made off with $6 million that belonged to New Haven Public Schools.
"Somebody needs to answer for the fact that they have stolen from the children of New Haven Public Schools," said Dr. Madeline Negron, the school's superintendent.
City officials said the hackers gained access to the school system’s chief operating officer’s email and kept a close eye on conversations.
"This was a case where someone quite clearly had access to his email and then was watching and inserted themselves at a time when there was potential approval for a payment," said Mayor Justin Elicker.
The FBI has recovered $3.6 million of the stolen funds but the effort to recover the rest and find who is responsible is still ongoing.
"We are working with a federal prosecutor and the FBI cyber task force," said New Haven police chief Karl Jacobson.
It’s a tough task, given how sophisticated and complex these attacks can be.
'These hackers are so good at spoofing. They study who are the people in the organization, they study who their partners are, they are so good at coming up with these attack methods, they are truly unbelievable," said Frederick Scholl, director of the cybersecurity program at Quinnipiac University.
He said the method used in this case is called “business email compromise.”
In other instances, it’s malware attacks that can have widespread impacts on an organization’s computer system.
"It’s very hard to find out where it is across the entire system and so that can take a huge amount of time and money to restore the systems and you’re never 100% sure," Scholl said.
He said that is what may have happened to the Eastern Connecticut Health Network and Waterbury Health.
Both health systems are still reporting impacts to some of their services related to a ransomware attack that happened a week ago.
"Unfortunately there are so many ways that hackers can get in, and attack techniques are being automated," Scholl said.
Danbury Public Schools is also reporting a data security breach of its network where faculty and staff information may have been compromised.
Scholl said all of these incidents underscore how important it is for organizations to be cyber-aware and prepared.
"You can’t say you’re not going to be attacked. You are going to be attacked so you have to be prepared on how to recover from the attack," Scholl said.
Gaby Molina is a reporter and anchor at FOX61 News. She can be reached at mmolina@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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