Cyber hack in LACCD leads to upgrades in security measures

DANI NOVAZSKI Reporter @dnovazski

Wi-Fi was shut down at Pierce College after a cyber security breach at Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) led to a ransom payment of $28,000 to hackers to prevent the release of private information.

The cybersecurity breach, which locked out about 1,800 students and faculty, was detected on Dec. 30. Valley College was given a week to pay the amount in BitCoin or risk losing all of its data.

Erika A. Endrijonas, president of the college, said in a press release that after consulting with cybersecurity experts and LACCD leadership, the ransom was paid on Jan. 4 and a key was delivered to allow re-entry to the blocked files.

LAVC is covered by a districtwide cybersecurity insurance policy that will pay a portion of the ransom. College officials deduced that paying $28,000 would be less expensive than trying to eliminate the ransomware from the network on their own.

This incident has caused Pierce College to make changes to its systems, including backing up data and requiring Wi-Fi authentication to increase cyber security.

Pierce had an open network which made it vulnerable. Pierce College IT Committee member Wendy Bass said that Pierce’s WiFi will now have requirements to go online.

“That’s one of the reasons they shut down the Wi-Fi on our campus. Our Wi-Fi had no authentication, so anyone could log into our network,” Bass said.

Faster connectivity in the WiFi system can be achieved by addressing security first, Pierce College IT Committee member Clay Gediman said.

“I think right now they’re just trying to get the security part fixed, and then they’ll start looking at the other parts that they can work on to make it better connected,” Gediman said.

One component of the upgrade will be that the system will require authentication to prove that the user is a student or faculty member. Gediman said that with less