SYRACUSE - Wawasee Community School Corporation is dealing with a possible ransomware attack that began late last week.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that is designed to block access to a computer system until money is paid.

According to a statement released to parents Friday, provided by Superintendent Dr. Steve Troyer to the Times-Union Monday night, at approximately 6 a.m. Friday Wawasee officials were alerted to a possible ransomware attack on one of the district’s computers.

“We immediately took action to shut down our network and began investigating the possible breach,” the statement says. “As part of that protocol, we alerted the Indiana Department of Education and the FBI/Department of Homeland Security. As we continued our investigation, we confirmed that we had been subject to a ransomware attack that impacted all of our Windows-based computers, servers and other technology systems. This caused significant disruption to our operations throughout the day but our teachers, staff and students were great as they have adapted to the challenging circumstances.”

At this time, Wawasee officials do not believe student and employee information and data systems are impacted as they are not located on the school corporation’s local servers.

“As we look to the future, our technology staff will be working around the clock to rebuild our servers and get our systems back up and running. We anticipate that over the next several days we will continue to experience some disruptions to our internet-based systems. There does not appear to be an impact on student Chromebooks and those should function as normal when they bring them home,” according to the statement.

It also thanks the technology staff for working through the situation and students and staff for being flexible and shifting plans when necessary.

In his email, Troyer said Wawasee had a meeting with outside counsel that is helping them work through this situation Monday and the counsel advised Wawasee that since they are in the middle of an ongoing investigation, Wawasee shouldn’t comment further at this time.

“We will continue to keep our parents, community members and media updated as we are able,” he stated.