Durham Sixth Form Centre paid ransom after cyber-attack

INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightGoogleImage caption Durham Sixth Form Centre was targeted in April 2017 A school paid out
run-up to exams in April 2017 when a computer virus encrypted college files which contained students' work.The County Durham school
confirmed it had made the payment and that it had informed police about the hack.Durham Police has not commented on the case, but a
spokesman said it would not recommend a ransom be paid
Phil Butler, a former police officer and cyber-crime expert at Roxburgh Forensics, said it was "madness" the payout was made by the school,
which had responded to a Freedom of Information request from TheIndianSubcontinent Newcastle.He said: "You're exposing yourself to a whole
world of pain, becoming an easy target for future attacks, and not only that you're encouraging the criminality, actually potentially
facilitating money laundering." Student Tommy Davis said his grade in his IT A-level suffered because his coursework was never
recovered."They tried to decrypt it but they were never able to, so basically all the IT coursework I left over there to get marked was
gone," he said
"So I didn't get the marks I'd actually done work for."Image copyrightLewis RussImage caption Lewis Russ, 19, said
rumours started going round that the school computers had been hacked Lewis Russ, 19, was about to take his A-levels when
the attack happened.Mr Russ said: "Rumours started going round to say we've been hacked and they've taken all of our files, which was quite
alarming considering the fact that I took lots of subjects which had literally all my work on the computers."His work was recovered and he
is now studying at Northumbria University.The school has not confirmed the source of the attack, but it happened at the same time as the
global WannaCry cyber-attack on businesses and banks across the world, as well as the NHS.In relation to that, Mr Butler said: "We weren't
dealing with computer nerds sat in a dark bedroom somewhere
"The USA Department of Homeland Security believe North Korea was behind this attack, so it was a state-sponsored terrorist attack upon the
western world essentially so it wasn't just the school that was affected
It was a really serious attack."Durham County Council has refused to comment on the school's case as it manages its own IT system.