The systems in the Billericay school were compromised during the half term holiday.
The incident followed a BBC report which revealed 347 cyber incidents were reported in the education and childcare sector in 2023 - an increase of 55% on 2022.
Government data suggested most schools and colleges have identified a cyber-security breach in the past year.
The BBC report about the cyber attack can be read here.
Cyber attacks most often happen at the very start of a holiday so they can work while everyone is on holiday. We have written previous articles about this:
Pre-Holiday Cyber Hygiene: Ensuring Security Before the Break
What to do in the event of a Cyber Attack
Tell someone! Report to IT. Report to SLT.Unplug the computer from the internet by removing the ethernet cable or turning the Wi-Fi off. Isolate the infected device and pass to IT
If you are a victim of a ransomware attack we would recommend reporting this to:
Action Fraud: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/ as well as your data protection officer so they can advise about the data loss or your local police and ask for the cyber crime team or phone 101 and ask for the cyber crime team.
Most cyber crimes like these will also need to be reported to the ICO by your data protection officer. Our customers should email
These incidents should also be reported to the DfE sector cyber team at
Academy trusts have to report these attacks to ESFA.
Where the incident causes long term school closure, the closure of more than 1 school or serious financial damage, you should also inform the National Cyber Security Centre.
Always ensure there are backups you can restore from. Preserving evidence is as important as recovering from the crime.
Forward suspicious emails to