New Haven Public Schools assessing damage after phishing attack

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — More than 1,000 phishing links were opened by New Haven Public Schools students after more than 10,000 fraudulent emails were sent in a large-scale cyber attack.

More than half of the entire student body received an email. Although no students have come forward reporting financial theft, the school system believes that some students filled out fraudulent forms. The school learned the scam on Monday.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said the emails have been wiped from the system and the school is no longer under threat from the attack. He added that city employees undergo phishing scam training.

“With students, I don’t think that there is as robust training,” said Mayor Elicker. “I think that is something that we should be working more on, and after this, it is something we will be having a conversation .”

The scam began when hackers gained access to at least four student emails, then the email blasts began.

“From one, they can go to four, and from four, they can go to hundreds or thousands,” Quinnipiac University cybersecurity professor Frederick Scholl said.

Scholl thought the attack sounded major, as young students would be especially at risk.

“It’s like the Trojan horse going into Troy,” said Scholl. “That is kind of what these things are. Unfortunately, it sounds like there are a lot of Trojan horses on many different systems, which is really hard to defend against.”

Scholl said the malware from phishing attacks can be very difficult to remove from a system.

New Haven students have been instructed by the school district not to interact with any suspicious emails and to alert the school’s IT department and their own personal financial institution. Affected students may also need to reset their passwords.

Scholl said schools are a growing target of cyber attacks.

“School systems have to be running pretty much all the time, they can’t shut down,” said Scholl. “Attackers have changed their focus and it is unfortunate, it is hard to defend against.”

News 8 reached out to the New Haven Police Department regarding the attack but has not yet received details.