Schools Site Hacked

A hacker broke into New Haven Public Schools’s website, debilitating the system for an undisclosed number of days.

Michael Pinto, the district’s chief operating officer, wouldn’t say when everything went down. But he said that, by Tuesday evening, the district had brought back all ​“critical functionality,” restoring the files through backups located on an offsite server.

“We’re back up and running,” Pinto said.

The school system is teeing up a new website that will be easier for parents to navigate.

Pinto said that this had nothing to do with its installation.

“It was a hacker attack,” Pinto said. ​“This was not because we installed any software.”

While the school system’s website was being reset, some community members wondered why Board of Education files had disappeared. They questioned whether someone was hiding the biweekly ​“blue sheets,” which have recorded a recent wave of resignations — including the latest from IT Director Kevin Moriarty. Those are expected to be uploaded again soon.

Meanwhile, citywide, officials have been prepping for a ​“ransomware” attack, where hackers shut down government servers and demand payment to hand them back.

Earlier this year, that prevented municipal employees in Baltimore from emailing each other, collecting fines and even recording property sales, but that wasn’t the case here.

Pinto said that he had not received any demands for bitcoin and that the district had not paid anyone off.